Matt Chandler - Advent of Joy

If you have the Bibles, let’s open up to that passage. I want to show you two significant things from this passage in particular and then explain how Christ is the fulfillment of what we are reading about. I think now, more than ever, I am grateful for the two decades I’ve spent with you, aiming to clarify the difference between joy and happiness; these two ideas are not the same thing. Although happiness is a good thing—I want happiness; I love to laugh until my face hurts. I love it when I have that energy that comes from happiness. Are you tracking with me on that? Like, I love it! But it’s so fragile. Happiness is just so fragile; it can break so easily. Universally, this room has experienced that strange thing that happens when, all of a sudden, you have this burst of happiness. You might know what it’s tied to, or maybe you don’t, but it’s there, and you’ve got that energy, and then someone can take that away in a second. Someone can drive too slowly, someone can turn the wrong way, or a kid might misplace something. Your spouse might do that thing you’ve discussed 40 times; happiness gone. But joy, biblical joy, is different from happiness in that it is not fragile at all. In fact, you can smash against it with the worst of this world, and it won’t break. I’m drawing this from many different places in the scriptures. Every time I mention this, someone says, «Hey, they’re defined the same way in the dictionary.» Well, that’s great; let me show you where I’m coming from. The first example comes from Acts chapter five, when the disciples, who had been sharing the gospel and seeing thousands of people give their lives to Jesus, are brought before the Sanhedrin. They are rebuked, and then the Bible tells us they were beaten. In verse 41 of Acts 5, the Bible says they left rejoicing because they were counted as worthy to be persecuted for the sake of the name. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been beaten with rods or whipped, having the skin taken off your back. I have not—well, I mean probably there was a time when I was a kid, but that’s different generations. It’s fine. Here’s what I would bet: it’s not a happy thing; it’s not a happy moment. So there’s something going on in the disciples. They’re rejoicing, but it’s different from happiness; it’s deeper. It transcends their physical comfort. Another example from the teaching of Jesus is actually in the Beatitudes—the last Beatitude, the one that gets very little attention: «Blessed are you when men revile you. Blessed are you when men speak ill and evil of you. Blessed are you when you are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.» I don’t know if you’ve ever been attacked by a mob, misrepresented, or had your words twisted. You fill in the blank. I don’t know if that has happened to you, but let me tell you, no one enjoys that. If you do enjoy that, you have bigger issues, which are not what I’m going to address today. The more bravado you have, the more I would say you’re probably so armored up that you don’t feel highs or lows; you’re borderline sociopathic. That doesn’t bother me—I’m speaking the truth. You need to give your inner child a hug. That’s not happy, but there’s something deeper there than just happiness, and I’m saying that deeper reality is joy. So, I want to talk about joy today because, in all honesty, it’s been a tough couple of years. I want to talk about joy today because, already this morning, I’ve prayed with two people weeping because this season is overwhelming them: the loss of a mother, the loss of a child, the loss of a job, the loss of a marriage, the loss of health. It’s in this room too. For many of us, happiness is probably something we’re going to miss this year. That’s not all of us; some of us are ready to celebrate, jingle bells and all that. But by and large, many of us are feeling the wear and tear of the last couple of years, which is great news because we have good tidings of joy. Joy is something deeper, something that can root us and anchor us in what is most true, so we can transcend our circumstances, whatever they may be. I love this passage. I want to take you to this passage because it contains gloom, contempt, and pain—Christmas themes. So look at verse one with me: «But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time, he brought contempt to the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he shall make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.» If you have a background in the church, you know Jesus is from Galilee. The ministry he’s going to do in the…