These words are printed in your bulletin on page 8. I'm going to be reading from Isaiah 11 and then Matthew chapters 1 and 2. These are the words of God. First from Isaiah 11, there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion, and the fattened calf together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. In that day, the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples, of him shall the nations inquire and his resting place shall be glorious. Now from Matthew chapters one and two, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. So all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations. And from David to the deportation to Babylon, 14 generations. And from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ, 14 generations. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem saying, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem saying, Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him.' After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. All people are like grass and all their beauty like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flower fades. Man, well Merry Christmas to you again. You know, I have been a Christian since 1995. I became a Christian when I was 19 years old, and it's then that I experienced true joy for the first time. Now sure, I had some moments of happiness before that, but it was the first time I had ever experienced true joy. And since then, the struggle of my life is the struggle against constantly settling for pseudo-joys and fake happiness. That's the battle of my life ever since I've become a Christian. Now, I've also been in full-time ministry since 1999. I teach about joy and I preach about joy, and yet the battle that rages in my heart is the battle to find true joy. Now, this Advent season, I've been trying to show how Christmas, which, by the way, is the first Advent, right? Advent means coming. We're talking about the first Advent when we talk about Christmas, that that is the source of true peace and love and hope. And this morning, we're gonna see it's the source of true joy. Now notice here in Matthew chapter two, here we have the first ever Merry Christmas. Notice the response of the Magi was explosive joy. Did you see those words? They rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. There is the first Merry Christmas. They rejoiced when they realized there's something very real about this. This isn't some kind of fairy tale. This isn't just some interesting phenomenon. This has the ring of truth to it when they laid eyes upon Jesus and realized that he was the promised savior of the world. Now this sermon text this morning is unique because we're drawing from three different chapters because I want to show how the joy of Christmas has a backstory, okay? So that's why we included Isaiah and then we include Matthew because we're showing there's a backstory here, okay? It was announced long before it occurred that when Christmas happens, it would bring a life-changing, mood-altering kind of joy. And if that mood-altering reality is gonna have any impact on us, we have to think about it more deeply, and we have to understand what happened at Christmas, and we have to embrace it with all of our hearts. That's why we're zeroing in on this this December, so that we really can get Christmas. And when you really get Christmas and embrace it with all of your heart, then you get hope, and then you get peace, and you get love, and you get the kind of joy the Bible talks about, okay? I'm reminded this time of the year of the Charlie Brown Christmas special because it's one of my favorite things to watch every December. I'm reminded of Charlie Brown's honesty, his vulnerability when he was talking about Christmas with Lucy. Some of you may remember this conversation when Charlie says, I think there must be something wrong with me because I just don't understand Christmas, I guess. I just don't understand Christmas," he says. I might be getting presents and sending Christmas cards and decorating trees and all that, but I'm still not happy. I don't feel the way I'm supposed to feel. And then Charlie sits in front of Lucy's psychiatric booth, you may remember, and Charlie says, Lucy, I'm in sad shape. And Lucy interrupts Charlie. She says, hold up there, Charlie. I need five cents from you for my kind of advice." And Charlie, he reaches into his pocket and he drops a nickel in her money can. Lucy says, boy, I love the beautiful sound of cold hard cash, that beautiful, beautiful sound, nickels, nickels, nickels, that beautiful sound of plunking nickels. Now what seems to be your trouble, Charlie? He says, I know I should be happy during Christmas, but I can't seem to manage it. Lucy, again, proudly interrupts. Well, as they say on TV, the mere fact that you realize you need help indicates that you're not too far gone, Charlie. I think we better pinpoint your fears. If we can find out what you're afraid of, we can label it. Are you afraid of responsibility, Charlie? If so, then you have hypengaiophobia. Well, how about cats, Charlie? If you're afraid of cats, you have alleraphasia. And if you're afraid of staircases, if you are, then you have climacophobia. Maybe you have thalassophobia, this is the fear of the ocean, or gephyrobia, which is the fear of crossing bridges, or maybe, Charlie, you have pantophobia. Do you think you have pantophobia? What's pantophobia, Charlie asks. Lucy says, it's the fear of everything. Charlie says, that's it. Actually, Lucy, my trouble is Christmas. I just don't understand it. I appreciate Charlie's vulnerability and being honest about the fact that he doesn't quite get Christmas. And I wonder if his problem is our problem that we don't really understand the significance of Christmas or why it's the only source for joy. So what I want to do this morning is I first want to take a look to see what does the dictionary say about the definition of joy. Let's start there. And then secondly, what's the Bible say about our DNA and our history with joy, okay? And then finally, how to discover true joy, all right? So the definition, the DNA, and the discovery. First of all, the definition of joy, according to the dictionary, is this. It is the emotion of great happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying. It is a source or cause of pleasure or delight. It's the display of glad feeling and of festive gaiety. If you're wondering what that is, I think we have some translation happening in here, just in case these in the front are wondering, and that's wonderful, by the way. Now, that's the definition of joy according to the dictionary. Here's the problem with the dictionary's definition. The problem is that it defines joy as being synonymous with happiness, and that's a problem, because joy isn't a feeling. according to the Bible. Joy isn't a feeling like happiness. Happiness is shallow and a fickle emotion, okay? Happiness is absolutely dependent on circumstances, and circumstances change. But joy finds its roots much deeper. Joy isn't flaky. See, joy can abound in any situation. Joy can abound in any circumstance. And so our problem is that we've lived our whole lives in a world that's pushing us to find happiness. We've been duped into looking for something that's actually less than joy. We haven't really been searching for joy. We've been pushed toward happiness. And so what is joy? I'm sure I've mentioned this before because I remember reading some years ago someone describing joy in this way, and it's just the best image I can think of for how to describe what joy is. And what I read years ago is that the best way to describe The biblical concept of joy is this. It's the mood of paradise. It's the mood of paradise. I want you to think about that. You can almost only picture that. What would it be like to walk into paradise? I mean, the kind of paradise the Bible describes where everything is right, and it will be that way forever, and you know it, and you are right, and relationships are right, and bodies are right, and there's God. What's the mood of paradise? Well, the mood is joy. I mean, you can imagine the mood at other places, right? What's the mood at a funeral? When you walk into a funeral, there's a mood, isn't there? There's a certain mood. What's the mood, Ang, when you're overseeing a classroom where final exams are being taken, right? When you walk into a room where final exams are being administered, there's a certain mood, isn't there? There's a mood, if you went to the national championship game last year in Washington, Michigan, there's a mood. It's excitement, it's electric. It's not necessarily joy, because in the back of your mind, you think, well, we could lose. And even after you win, you think, well, who's coming back next year? Will our coach be back? And there's all these questions, right? So there's excitement and there's some happiness, but there's not the mood of paradise. Paradise, the mood of paradise is joy. And so that's what we're talking about when we talk about joy. It's more than a feeling, it's a mood, it's a posture, it's something deep within. And we have to ask the question, where does it come from? So in other words, to our second point, what's the DNA of joy? What's the origin of joy? I've noticed an origin section in our online dictionaries. I'm not sure how often you guys frequent online dictionaries, but they've really upped their game. And they've developed, you know, all kinds of robust visuals to show the origin of words. If you look up a certain word and you see where that word came from, there's even visuals of maps, like, you know, how it sort of traveled across the world over time to get to be where it is today. for us, for example, like the word university. You look up the word university and you get the origin even of that word and how it moves from medieval Latin to Old French to Middle English, right? So we love talk of the origin of things. And I'd like to make the case that Matthew, the gospel writer, was ahead of his time here in presenting the origin story for joy. I think that's what he's doing here, actually, in his gospel. He's showing where it comes from and how we can discover it. In fact, the word that Matthew uses, did you notice in the opening verses of Matthew 1, the word that he uses for genealogy, you see that word, genealogy? That's the word for origin. So Matthew's telling an origin story here, okay? And those are huge right now. Origin stories are huge. I mean, it's not just Superman we want to see, but we want to know how did Superman get here? My kids are into that old show from the 90s called Smallville. Any Smallville fans in here? Superman in his teenage years. It's the origin story of Superman. You get behind the scenes, you see where he came from. My daughter last night with a friend watched Wicked. I think that's the sort of origin story, isn't it? The Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz, right? We love origin stories. I'm personally still waiting for the origin story of Mighty Mouse, but I digress. There's a lot of origin stories I'd like to see. He's one of them. You know, in the same vein, have you noticed how popular DNA testing is right now? I mean, it's the same thing. We want to know our origin, and there's something very meaningful about knowing the fabric you're part of. Are any of your families into, like, DNA stuff? My family's kind of gotten into that. They even have like a private Facebook group with like DNA information. It's so interesting to kind of look like throughout history and see different parts of different countries where people come from and like this hunter-gatherer region. And I'm kind of starting to see like my fabric, like where that kind of redneck streak comes from in my family. And now I know like, oh, that's why Denny catches and kills and eats snapping turtles. And you know, when you, you know, you look at the origin and you begin to understand these things, and I'm telling you that because that's Matthew chapter 1. That's what he's doing in chapter 1. It's the origin story. He's walking through the history of the world so you know your fabric. You know, we saw this a couple of weeks ago when Robert wonderfully walked us through the genealogy of chapter 1, but I'm pulling out this snippet Because I want to show you something very particular about joy, okay? Now, notice in Matthew 1, Matthew includes talk of the deportation, or that's the word for exile. He's bringing up and he's even emphasizing the exile. There's a reason he's doing that, as part of the genealogy. If you would have asked people in those ancient times, what's the one thing that would suck all the joy out of us? Like, what's one thing that would just absolutely steal your life of joy? They would have agreed, and they would have said, well, exile. You know, to be removed from your homeland. I mean, it had implications relationally, financially, spiritually. I mean, it was death, it was hell on earth. Exile would have sucked out all the joy. And that's why I included Isaiah chapter 11. Did you notice that there on page eight in your bulletin? I included Isaiah 11 because there is the imagery that's used to describe the death and the pain and the joylessness of exile. You notice what that imagery is, the picture? It's the picture of a stump. I mean, that's the picture of what life is like for those who have been exiled. It's a stump. I mean, what could be more lifeless than a stump? I've got stumps in my yard. They are lifeless. They're ugly. They're just there, right? That's what life is like, the joyless life of exile. That picture is used because the stump is lifeless, it's not thriving, it's the opposite of joy. And Matthew opens his gospel emphasizing the exile because it was a dominant problem throughout the Old Testament. I mean, throughout history leading up to that first Christmas, okay? Exile was a dominant problem. And so he emphasizes that here. But it wasn't just going back to Babylon and Assyria. It was a dominant problem going all the way back to the Garden of Eden. there actually is the first and significant, most significant exile that we have in the Bible. Because there in the Garden of Eden, we have the first exile. That is the event of humanity being cast out from the paradise of God's presence. That was the darkest exile there's ever been. There was the first and the initial loss of joy when they were exiled from the Garden of Eden. And so, that's your origin story. If you want to know your DNA, I mean, you really want to know the fabric you're a part of. There it is. That's why Matthew emphasizes it. That's why the prophets emphasize it. You are a person who was made with a longing for true joy. God made you for the joy of paradise. He gave you that capacity. But you've been shut out from the only person who can give you that joy. I mean, that's significant as we try to wrestle with the question of who am I and what fabric am I a part of in my DNA? That's it. You were made for joy, but shut out from the only one who could give you true joy, and you've inherited a nature that actually resists Him, that resists God. There's no way to underestimate the way that this has shaped your struggle to find joy and my struggle to find joy. There's no way to underestimate that. I mean, just look at the way we see this struggle with joy in our culture. I saw a report about life expectancy decreasing And suicides on the rise, and as Arun Hindi, a demographer at Duke University says, the epidemic of prescription painkillers and heroin abuse is probably fueling this increase in unintentional injuries. The rise in drug abuse and suicide could be due to economic factors causing despair, and Anne Case, an economist at Princeton, says the mood is pretty grim. The mood is pretty grim. I'm just describing our current culture. And as we near Christmas, we're watching advertisers do their best to tap into the nerve center of our need for joy. And they're doing everything they can to stir up our dopamine banks to show us that they have what we need to find happiness. See, I mean, advertisers are brilliant. They know the mood is grim. They know that we're searching, right, for joy. And of course, they say we have the answer. And what stands out to me is how they're pushing, like, this transcendent gratification. I mean, just listen to the music in the background and advertisement. It's just transcendent. I mean, this will lift you out of all of your troubles, and it will happen immediately because, of course, our technology today will allow this to happen much faster. So, transcendent gratification, the deepest joy immediately is sort of what we're being pulled into, and of course, we're entitled to this as part of the message. Maybe this is why we flitter from one thing to the next, looking for the next hit of dopamine, but we have to ask the question, after all these promises and the advertising and the products, are we bursting at the seams with joy? Are we bursting at the seams with joy? Well, I would say the research and our daily experience says, no, we're not. And so the sad news is the world does a great job of recognizing that the mood is grim. that we need joy and tries to offer solutions, but the best the world can offer is a flimsy happiness that's here one moment and it's gone the next. And we all know that, right? I mean, it's this flimsy happiness, it's here one moment, it's gone the next. And so no matter what they're pushing 1,000 Christmases from now, no one will ever devise any kind of technology or drug that can cope with the inevitability of death, or the death of your friends, or the death of your family, or the death of your dreams. There's nothing that can cope with the inevitability of those things. The German philosopher, who's now dead, but you philosophy students surely have read some of Martin Heidegger. Martin Heidegger said something that I thought was very insightful. He said that the awareness of one's own death is what makes human beings different from all other life forms. He says, we know, if we're being honest, that our time is limited. And just knowing that, just knowing that, this attacks our joy because it raises significant questions like this. Will I have enough time to fulfill my destiny? And there's just something that creeps in making us wonder, will I have enough time to fulfill what I was put on earth for? Will I have enough time to accomplish my life purpose? How will I be remembered? What will I leave behind? I mean, does my life really count? And since illness and the loss of loved ones or other events continue to remind us of the fragility of life, Heidegger believed that anyone who's honest about it can't help but to suffer from a kind of anxious depression. That's kind of a pessimistic way of thinking about it. That was Heidegger's conclusion. I mean, we can't help if we're honest about these realities to suffer from an anxious depression. I was getting my hair cut and I struck up a conversation with a couple of people sitting in the chairs next to me. They were probably late 20s or pushing 30ish. And I asked, are you guys like classic millennials? And the guy who was sitting next to me playing something on his phone the whole time, He finally looked up and he said, he pointed at this woman sitting in the other chair, he said, she's not. And I said, well, how would you define it? And he rattled off an answer like he'd just given like a university lecture on the topic. It was really amazing. And he said, you know, millennials, they want big things and they want to find big meaning, but with little effort. And they think they deserve it. And they're whiny when things don't go their way. And he's saying all this while he's looking up and down from his phone. And so I said, and they're distracted too? And he said, absolutely. And I asked, are you a millennial? He said, yeah, after giving me this lecture. And I said, do you work here? And he said, no, I'm just hanging out because my friends work here. And it just struck me that everything he said paints a picture of our culture, of us, not only millennials, even Gen Xers like me. We've been hypnotized into living a life constantly flirting with happiness. We want transcendent meaning. We want big joy. We want big life. But instead, I think I'll doom scroll for another hour. and never really discover true joy. We flirt with happiness that's not rooted, it's not deep, it's not true joy. Why did Martin Heidegger, the philosopher, say that an anxious depression is the default human mood? I mean, think about that. That's a strong statement. It's because it reflects the true perception of our condition. He goes on to say we're finite beings with only limited time and energy, and yet we can imagine limitless possibilities, and we harbor infinite hopes. And so joylessness results from an honest appraisal of the fact that we care about existence, but it will soon cease. We care about our marriage, but there's a lot that's wrong with it. You know, we care about our children, but we're scared to death for them. We care about the church, but relationships are messy and hard. We care about justice and righteousness and love, but there's so much injustice and so little love in the world. And I could continue to go on with lists and lists, but these are the missiles. These are the missiles that are just coming at us every day from different angles. And they're missiles that are just attacking our joy. They're attacking that sense, right? It's reminding us you're not in paradise. Paradise isn't here, right? So how can we talk about joy as the mood of paradise as something we can have when, I mean, these missiles that just attack us and steal our joy are so constant. Well, that's why we're so addicted to flirting with the short-lived happiness of dopamine-giving substances or trinkets or mood-altering circumstances. And the world's story that we live in every day is the same old story that we're bombarded with every day. It's saying, you need joy. I mean, the world agrees with that. Our culture agrees with that. You need joy. And you'll get joy when you accomplish this or that at work. When people think more highly of you, when you secure this or that treasure, or when you have the assurance that that person you love so much will love you back and they'll never leave you. Or when you have a large pile of cash for retirement, or when your problems in marriage or work go away. And so the world says, go after those things, go and chase those things. But if you fail, it'll be painful. If those things don't come through for you, it'll be painful. So you need to find a way to distract yourself or numb the pain. Either way, if that's your ticket to get joy, you'll never get it. And so at a very personal level, everything I just described, that is our DNA, okay? That is our origin story. And it's why true joy is so hard to come by. But here's the deal. I say all that leading up to this, with Christmas, there is a mood-altering reality that makes true joy possible. Even in the midst of everything I just said, true joy is possible. And so, how can we discover true joy, and what's Christmas have to do with it? Now, notice again in the sermon passage, I included Isaiah, the prophet. Let me tell you why I included Isaiah. I included it because I think that's part of Matthew's origin story. Matthew's origin story traces Jesus back through the Davidic line, that is through King David's line to fulfill the promise that a king from David's line would come and rule and save. David's father's name was Jesse, right? So you see that in Matthew chapter one. Well, look at these words from Isaiah. the prophet. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump." There's that dead, lifeless stump, but from the stump of Jesse, and notice, a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. Wait, what? I mean, a stump is dead. How could a branch, how could a vine with life come forth from this dead stump. This is meant to be this sort of surprising hopeful picture that even though things seem like they're dead, even though it seems like God is dead and the promises of God are dead and there's no real hope or future or kingdom or paradise coming, it looks that way, it looks like a stump. He says, out of the stump of Jesse, right? There shall be a branch from these roots and they'll bear fruit. And notice the kind of world that will come with this person, this branch out of the stump of Jesse. Notice the kind of world that he'll bring. It's just this beautiful picture, right? The wolf shall dwell with the lamb. The nursing child shall play over the hole of a cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. That's quite a picture, isn't it? The kids playing over the holes of poisonous snakes. And Isaiah goes on, he goes on in later chapters. So for example, in Isaiah chapter 60, this isn't listed for you, but just listen to these words later on in Isaiah describing what will take place in the world when this promised person comes. In Isaiah 60, for example, he says, lift up your eyes and look about you. When you see this person who comes, when you see this savior, this messiah, this king, he says, your heart will throb and it will swell with joy. Herds of camels will cover your land and all from Sheba will come bearing gold and incense. Do you see what the prophet, several hundred years before that first Christmas, by the way, do you see what he's describing with this one who's coming, who's of the line of David? He's talking about the coming of paradise. He's saying when he comes, paradise will follow. And isn't it interesting to hear these words from the prophet talking about when he comes, right, there will be people from distant lands bringing gold and incense and their hearts will swell with joy. Does that ring a bell of some scripture we've seen? from Matthew about Christmas, for example. Remember the Magi? They came from a distant land. What did they bring? They brought their gold and myrrh, gifts fitting for a king. We're told here in Matthew that their hearts were exceedingly joyful. They were rejoicing with great joy. Don't you guys see? This is Matthew's way of saying is, he's arrived. the one the prophet was speaking about, the one who is going to bring a new world, the one who is going to bring joy, so much joy that your hearts would swell, he's arrived in Jesus when he says, the Magi brought their gold and their myrrh, and they rejoiced. And it wasn't just Matthew saying this. I mean, Jesus himself constantly confirmed this by saying, yeah, that's why I've come. I came for joy, right? He says, in one place, the thief, he's talking about Satan, the evil one. He says, the thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. Like he is the enemy of joy. He wants to rob you of all joy in life. But Jesus said, I've come that you might have life and have it to the full. I mean, when Jesus encountered the woman at the well, And that really was a conversation about joy, wasn't it? She'd been flirting with short-lived happiness of romantic relationships, and she encounters Jesus, and Jesus says, that water you've been drinking, speaking of her life and all the happiness she was trying to find in this world, it's not satisfying you, but I have a water that will satisfy you forever. He's talking about himself, a relationship with me. When you have a relationship with me, Jesus is saying, There is the living water of joy. He told stories like the story of the prodigal son who ran off to a distant country for what? To find happiness. Of course, that's what we all want. And he had all the resources to do it, and he went to the place where you could find it. And he was absolutely miserable. So miserable, so joyless, so lifeless, he came running back home, right? And what was Jesus' point? It's only when we come home and we return to God, who is the source of our joy, that we will find it. That's why that story ends with this celebration. Because Jesus, again, is saying, when you come to me, there's joy. In John chapter 15, Jesus said, I am the vine. I can't help but to wonder if he had in the back of his mind the prophet Isaiah talking about the vine that would come from the stump of Jesse. I'm the vine, and you're the branches. What's he say? If you abide in me, and if I abide in you, you will bear much fruit. And he says just after that, Jesus says just after that, I've told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. These are just examples of how much Jesus cares about your joy. They're examples of Jesus affirming that that's why he came. And so if you've become cynical, right, or skeptical like Martin Heidegger about the possibility for real joy, I'd rather you listen to Jesus than Martin Heidegger. I'd rather you hear Jesus say, no, real joy in this very broken world is really possible. That's why I came. That's what Christmas, that's what Christmas was about. Jesus affirmed again and again that he is the mood-altering person who came at Christmas. And I want you to think about this. When he came, we're dealing with one who's not only a human being, though he is fully human, he is God, from eternity past, and he knew you. I'm talking about you individually. You, He knew you before the foundation of the world. And even though He knew you, He came. Even though He knew you, He came at that first Christmas. You know the worst about you, yourself. There's one person who knows more about you than you do, and that is Jesus. And even though he knows the worst about you, he knows your failures, he knows your darkness, he knows the way you ignore him, he knows the way you've never really worshipped him, he knows the way that you don't walk with him, he knows the way that you hate him, he knows the way that you've sinned, he knows all of those things. He knew all of those things before the foundation of the world, and yet he came. and he loved you, he didn't just come, he came and he loved you, and he loved you so much that he left the joy of heaven to be born into this world so that he himself would face every form of suffering, even to the point of death on a cross. He faced a life of hell for you, he went to hell for you, and for the first time in eternity, think about this, Jesus himself was exiled from the joy of God's presence. Jesus was exiled in your place, cast out from the joy of God's presence for the first time in eternity when he went to the cross for you because he loved you, because that's why he came, that's why he was born. For the forgiveness of your sins so that you would no longer be exiled but instead welcomed in to drink constantly from his spring of living water. You see, you're invited to come in, to come to Him. You're no longer in spiritual exile because He was exiled in your place. He solved that problem for you so that the way is open for you to come in and to drink from His spring of living water, and He's presently at work in you to transform you from being a stump to being like a tree planted by streams of water, bursting with the fruit of joy. I don't know how stump-like you feel this morning, but He is at work in you to transform you from being stump-like, lifeless, joyless, to being a person who bursts forth with the fruit of joy. And this is possible if you're a Christian because already, if you're a Christian, if you've placed your faith in Jesus Christ, already paradise is yours. Remember, we said joy is the mood of paradise. Already, paradise is yours. Not yet in its final state, not yet experienced in its perfect state, but already paradise is yours if you're a Christian. Because if you're a Christian, by faith, you have Christ. and He has you. He is your joy because He is what makes paradise, paradise. I mean, there's no such thing as paradise without the very presence of God, without Jesus. I mean, you could have everything be perfect and if Jesus weren't there, it's not paradise. It's His glory, it's His majesty, it's His love and His goodness and all that He is that makes paradise what it is. And if you're a Christian, you have Him. You have a relationship with the one who makes paradise what it is, that's why he says, if you abide in me, and I in you, you will bear much fruit. My joy will be in you, and your joy will be complete. How could Jesus make such a bold statement? Because he knows who he is, and he knows that when you really abide in him, and he in you, there will be It's no wonder that the New Testament speaks of this as being the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is, amongst other things, what? Joy, because the Spirit of Christ dwells in you. Now, getting very practical about this, you may wonder, what's this look like on a day-to-day basis? There's a lot I could say about that, but let me just offer one very practical thought. If your highest priority when you get out of bed in the morning is to find joy, and I believe it is, whether you think about that or not, I think when we get out of bed in the morning, underneath everything else, there's this passion that we would find joy, okay? If that's your highest priority, my question to you is do you make it your highest priority to abide in the presence of the one who is your joy? Is it your highest priority to abide in the presence of Jesus, to spend time with Him? To make it your highest priority to spend time with God in His word and in prayer? I wonder, is that the highest priority for you every day? Let me encourage you to consider, wherever you're at spiritually, let me encourage you to make that your highest priority every day. to have some time that you have carved out to spend very intentional time with God in His word and in prayer. I don't know of another way to constantly, day by day, to abide in Jesus, to be strengthened in our faith, to remember how good the gospel really is, and to find our joy. in Him. Now, when you spend time in God's Word and when you spend time in prayer, there's multiple things that happen in this encounter. Perhaps some of you have never really done that. Perhaps some of you have never gone into a room and closed the door and opened your Bible and intently listened to what the Lord says through His Word and sincerely talked to Him in prayer. Perhaps you've never done that. Let me tell you that there's multiple things that happen in this encounter. For a moment, if you could imagine your heart as a garden. Think of your heart like a garden. Here's what happens when you spend time alone with God in his word and in prayer. First of all, he searches out your garden. He walks the garden of your heart through his word. His word gets underneath of us. And he begins to point out the stumps and the weeds that are in our garden, the stumps and the weeds that are just sucking our joy. He shows you how you've been settling for lesser joys. He does that through his word. His word convicts us and it reveals to us our blind spots and we realize, wow, I've been settling for something less than the joy of Jesus Christ. I've actually made certain things idols that are sucking the joy out of my life. We've been settling for maybe a fleeting happiness instead of Him. He'll show us how you've deceived yourself, and you've made excuses, and you've formed bad habits, and you've hardened your heart, and all these things are sucking the joy out of your life. This is the bloody, violent battle of repentance, folks. Acquiring true joy will feel painful for a moment because there's weeds in your life that you have to pull up. There's weeds, there's things you've gotten used to, there's things you've embraced, there's idols you've become friends with and you've begun to love. There's lies and addictions that you've grown to be friends with and they're like weeds and stumps that are just stealing the joy from your life and it's painful to pull those up. And there's no way to even know they're there unless you spend time with the Lord and through his word he reveals to you He reveals to you these weeds and these stumps. And He loves you enough to say, pull up the weeds. There's some weeds, there's some stumps in that corner over there, pull them up. And He does this because He wants you to find joy. But that's not all that happens. He also shows you corners of the garden that you've never seen. Fresh, beautiful flowers of His grace. Oh, as you spend time in his word, you realize there's layers and layers and depths to his grace that's greater than your sin. He shows you new corners of his forgiveness and of his promises that meet you right where you are. He shows you new trees that are sprouting up and blooming with colors you've never seen before of His character and His faithfulness and His wisdom and His power. And there's beautiful scents and smells that give you a sniff of the riches and the new life of the new creation that now defines you. We get that when we spend time alone with God and His word. in time alone with him in prayer. It's not complicated, folks. To find true joy, we need fresh reminders every day of how good the good news really is. Fresh reminders of the good news that the one born at Christmas has come into your life to be your joy. We need fresh reminders every day that already paradise is yours because Jesus is yours and you are his. Of course, not yet perfectly experienced, but the mood of paradise is one of the gifts that you can enjoy right now, no matter what your circumstances say. And that's the point of Advent. Jesus has come. He was born, he lived for you, he suffered for you, he was exiled for you, he died for you, and he was raised for you. And he will come again. Right now we live in that in-between tension of His first and His second coming. But you don't have to wait until He comes again to have true joy. By faith, abide in Him now, the one who promises you that His joy will be in you and your joy will be complete. So we truly can say Merry Christmas because of the promise of Jesus, amen. Let's pray.