Living Towards Joy

The following video transcript has been lightly edited

  As we continue our celebration of advent today, we're gonna talk about joy. That's the candle we lit. And one of the things I wanna talk about is that while joy is something I think that all of us crave and desire, it can often feel just a little bit out of reach as we live our lives and. The various forms of disappointment and struggle stack up as we look around at the world and see some of the brokenness as we become overly focused on performing well or being responsible.

I think our own capacity for joy becomes limited. We begin to be people who sort of trudge through things. And admittedly, as we look around because of the sadness and the brokenness and the cancer and the divorce, it's like, oh, can I actually responsibly experience joy? What we see from Isaiah is that there's a prophecy of the future and what the future is pictured is a future in which the desert blooms, that there's no more sighing and sorrow, and that joy and gladness are the things that will reign forever. And I love that. And I think that that future reality that we can hope in can actually allow us to experience joy now today, even though it might be imperfect. And it helps us in three ways.

One, I think Faith gives us the capacity to experience joy. Two, it teaches us humility and humble people actually have an experience of joy and laugh a little bit more. And lastly, we can know that as we rejoice in the good, and now that we're actually celebrating that future vision that Isaiah talks about and that Christ comes to fulfill.

So let's talk about, let's talk about how faith increases our capacity for joy. Well, if we look around at the world and we see the death, the brokenness, the cancer, the corruption, the human rights violations, and we think about this world as just a natural occurrence, something that was not created and loved by God, but something that just somehow exists.

What physics tells us is that ultimately the universe will one day just sort of spread apart to the place in which it just no longer exists. It all becomes dark matter because the sun and the solar system pulls apart. It all gets cold, everybody dies. And so that's a real encouraging vision. And yet in every person I know there's some sense that life is meaningful, that there's goodness and beauty and wonder, relationships matter, and art matters and all kinds of things matter. People matter.

So why is it then that we can have confidence in those kinds of things? And I think that's where faith comes in, because we have faith in God's future. It allows us to see that this world is not meaningless. It's not absurd. It's not just dark and barren, but rather one day God will take this world which is imperfectly good now and restore it to its fullness.

So Isaiah, as he is talking about this vision, talks about the desert and that the desert will one day bloom. Most of us don't live in a desert, but I think we can connect better to the idea of what Syracuse is like at the end of March, beginning of April, it's gray and drab, and feels barren. And then as we enter into April and May and the sun comes out and the leaves come back, and the tree and the grass starts to come in, you start to hear the birds and the kids' voices as they're out on their bikes.

It's transformed. And so that future, having faith that that future is what our reality is going to be, that joy is the future reality, enables us to live and serve and rejoice currently. And so that faith shapes us. And so one of the questions I would ask you is like, are you experiencing joy now? And how has your faith fueled that? Are you allowing your faith in God's goodness, in God's future reality to allow you to rejoice in the present.

Second, we see that humility leads us to joy. Again in Isaiah's prophecy, what occurs is that it talks about how God will come to rescue, that God's gonna set things right, that God's going to allow the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the dumb to be able to speak.

And there's a setting things right, but one of the things that is within that is that we have to accept the reality that God is the one who saves and rescues, and it's not entirely within our capacity and our capability. And as we rest in that, it actually sets us free. It sets us free and creates humility in our lives in such a way where we get to participate and enjoy what God is doing all around us.

You know, I'm infamous for being horrible with details. I book the wrong things all the time, only to show up at the hotel and be like, ah, Mr. Pipes, we have a reservation for you next month, but not tonight. And tonight the hotel is full. Always a sad moment. I can be frustrated about that, but at this point in my life, I just laugh about it.

I just enjoy it because I'm humble enough to know that this is something I'm not good at, and I will repeatedly do this more than likely for the rest of my life. You know, one of the things happy couples get good at is that good, good at laughing at one another and laughing at some of the things that before used to drive them crazy, and now they're able to make light of it.

Because there's something about humility that opens us up to laughing and crying. And in this case, it opens us up to joy. Think about kids. Kids, one of the things that makes them. Be able to enjoy and rejoice at Christmas is that they have hope and expectation and that they don't think too much of themselves, and so they're willing to just enter in to joy with abandon.

So what does that look like for you? What does it look like for you this season to maybe enter in to joy with a sense of just humility and just all in on it? The last thing that we see is that by rejoicing now we're actually celebrating the future. So there's a future in which sighing and sorrow will be gone, and joy and gladness will be the permanent fixtures.

There's a lot of sighing and sorrow in the world, and sighing and sorrow seems to be the appropriate response. Some of my sighing comes just from the reality that it's harder to put on my shoes than it used to be. Some of my sighing comes because I read the news and see the death and sadness and brokenness.

But there's a future coming in which sighing and sorrow will be banished forever, and joy and gladness will be the permanent state. And so as we make choices to rejoice and as we make choices to celebrate and pursue joy and gladness today, we're actually doing that in anticipation of the future. And so my question for you is like, what could that look like?

What might it look like for you this Christmas to just go all in on rejoicing and celebrating because you know there's a future coming in, which that is the ultimate reality. Enjoy those Christmas cookies. Enjoy those lights, enjoy the people you're with and celebrate because you can celebrate today because of the future that is coming.

Hey, I hope you have a great week and we look forward to continue to celebrate this Christmas season with you. Take care.