Abiding Joy
Notes
Transcript
In college I distinctly remember walking into a gathering of 40 college students and being enveloped in a time of beautiful and intimate rejoicing. They were worshiping in a way that was different from what I was used to. They were demonstrative. They didn’t care who was watching. And the presence of God was palpable. I remember shooting up a quick prayer to God saying, “I want what they have.” I had grown up worshiping God in different ways, but somehow what I experienced at the student union that evening didn’t compare to any of my other experiences. Fast forward a few months. I began to play electric bass on that worship team and I began leading a Bible study with the girl drummer of our band. From the moment we met we knew we would be friends forever. These were the days before smart phones and wifi. So our campus pastor, Gabe, became our Bible Gateway. We’d call him when we couldn’t remember where certain verses were in the Bible. We would get together on Monday evenings, an hour or so before study would start, and we would plan our Bible study together. We decided to do a study on the fruits of the Spirit and I will forever remember our icebreaker question the first night. “What kind of fruit would you be and why?” The answers were silly but very telling. After our first evening we asked each girl to choose a fruit of the Spirit that they would like to grow in. For some reason that night I chose joy. I can’t tell you why, it just seemed to leap off the page. So for 10 weeks I focused on growing in joy and it began to mark my life. What I didn’t know that Monday night was that joy doesn’t mean happiness, it does not depend on circumstances, and it doesn’t mean that my life would be filled with flowers and rainbows from that point forward. What I learned is that the deep abiding joy our Spirits crave is found in Christ alone.
We are going to return to the Upper Room discourse and review a few verses we have already studied in order to dig out the true meaning of joy. John 15:9-12, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”
In these few verses Jesus is clearly defining the calling we have as believers in Christ. Earlier this week, in my morning quiet time, I was reading and about the difference between our calling and our tasks/assignments.
1. People will spend their entire lives trying to find their calling.
We will experiment with all different types of carriers, classes, and hobbies to identify we are called to do on this earth. This is because we tie our purpose to our calling. Many people will drift around and never be anchored in a calling because we confuse being assigned to do something with our calling.
Many have said that I am called to be a preacher and pastor. They’ve been so kind to reaffirm this gifting in my life. But if I anchor my purpose in life with my two hours up here on the stage every Sunday then I will never be content and I will more often than not feel defeated. I am my worst critic. If we want to experience true joy, we need to redefine our calling using Jesus’ own words.
John 15:10, “If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
Pastor Frank already defined the word “remain”, but I would like to do it again in case you weren’t here for that message. The Greek word is “meno” and means to stay, remain, abide. This kind of remaining means that we are completely surrendered to God every single day.
2. Our calling is to be abandoned to His love, His will and His ways.
But too many of us are trying to find our joy in our assignments. Our assignments are the opportunities God gives us to be obedient to Him. I want to lead you through a portion of scripture today that shows how Jesus changes our focus on being task oriented to being calling oriented.
Luke 9:1-6, “When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. 3 He told them: “Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt. 4 Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. 5 If people do not welcome you, leave their town and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” 6 So they set out and went from village to village, proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere.
This type of task is not an easy one to find joy in. They had to go to different towns and villages doing things that, up to this point, they had only seen their Rabbi do. This was an intense experiment in trust. Would God supply everything they needed to do what He had asked them to do? Some of them may have been excited, some of them may have been nervous, and some of them may have questioned if Jesus really knew what He was doing. If you interviewed these men at that moment I highly doubt that they would have said that they were delighted to go and do these things. Or that they really enjoyed being totally dependent on God for all of their needs to be met. The disciples had nothing with them except the power and authority that Jesus had given them, which in the end was all they needed.
3. It is hard for us to experience joy when we are given an assignment that is out of our comfort zone.
As a teenager I remember going to conferences where they would teach us how to evangelize. Then they would drop us off in the middle of Denver, usually at different malls, and we were told we needed to talk to a certain number of people about Jesus. And our leading question was supposed to be, “If you were to die tonight, do you know if you’d go to heaven or hell?” Well that’s awkward. But I did it. As a 15 year old girl I went up to people and asked that question, while panicking on the inside. The most memorable moments of this experience was being able to pray with people, some to receive Christ, and others to simply pray for their needs. Now that I am a little more experienced in life and faith, I don’t believe this to be the most effective way of evangelism, but it did teach me that joy did not come with the assignment. After we joined back together as a group, we got to share what God did, and that’s when the joy became real.
4. Abiding in Him, even in uncomfortable assignments brings abundant joy.
The disciples experienced this as well. While they were gone on assignment, Jesus received the heartbreaking news that His cousin, John the Baptist, had been beheaded. While Jesus was grieving this loss, the disciples returned filled with stories of what they had experienced. Luke 9:10, “When the apostles returned, they reported to Jesus what they had done. Then he took them with him and they withdrew by themselves to a town called Bethsaida,”
Jesus already divinely knew what they had done, but He wanted His disciples to report to Him. I wish there was more written about that day. I can only imagine the excitement these disciples experienced recounting their stories of healing and salvation! And Jesus wanted to hear about it all so He stole them away for a bit!
As they began retelling their experiences I wonder if any of them had that aha moment, that moment when they realized that none of what they had done could have ever been accomplished apart from Christ and the power and authority He gave them. They may not have had time to really get to that kind of epiphany because they weren’t left alone with Jesus for very long.
The next verse in Luke 9:11 says, “but the crowds learned about it and followed him. He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing.”
No rest for the weary. On to the next assignment. One that is familiar to almost every Christ follower. The feeding of the 5,000. Before this point they had experienced Jesus’ authority over the spiritual realm as well as the physical realm, but they still hadn’t learned about His complete jurisdiction.
As the day wore on, the disciples recognized that the people needed to eat. They tell Jesus to send the people home so they can get food. Jesus actually responds to their request by saying, “You give them something to eat!” They responded by telling Jesus that they only have five loaves of bread and two fish.....The disciples were tired. They didn’t have much to offer. They probably wanted to go home and be alone for a while. They might have been peopled out. The assignment of feeding over 10,000 people seemed insurmountable. They weren’t excited for this task.
So Jesus took their “only” and turned it into abundance. Luke 9:14-17, “But he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” 15 The disciples did so, and everyone sat down. 16 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to distribute to the people. 17 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.”
As they were distributing the bread I wonder if their joy and delight began to increase as they noticed that their baskets never lacked sustenance. And when all was said and done, they each had an entire basket of bread for themselves. The leftovers were not an accident. Jesus didn’t miscalculate. He was making a point. When you abide in me your joy will be complete. The assignment was just the means to get them to trust their Savior more and more.
I am going to be really honest with you. Every time I serve in some capacity I am not always excited about it. I don’t love painting walls, I hate the preparation work and the clean up. I don’t love making casseroles all the time for potlucks. I have been known to be cranky before youth group on Wednesday nights because I want a night off. I am human. But.....I have NEVER regretted the times I have served whether that has been in church maintenance or in teaching or preaching God’s word. My joy is not found in the assignment, it’s found in abiding in Christ and knowing that every time I show up, He faithfully shows up and the Kingdom of God is expanded. I delight in hearing a room full of teenagers worship Him! I delight in every aha moment as we study His Word. I delight in watching people plug into the source of Life for the first time. I delight in seeing God do His thing. I delight in knowing that God chooses us to do things that are greater than anything we could do on our own. And after each of these encounters I run back to Him delighted to tel Him all that happened.
But most of all I delight in in who He is and all He has done! That is my basket full of leftover bread!
Paul reiterates Jesus’ words so beautifully in Philippians 2:1-11, “Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
There was no joy or delight in carrying out the assignment of becoming a human and dying on the cross. In fact, Jesus asked God for another way the night He was betrayed. He knew the pain and agony He would have to endure. Hebrews 12:2 tells us, “For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
The joy set before Him was that He would once again be in His Father’s presence and that He was ultimately making a way for anyone who would believe to dwell with Him there for eternity!
That is why Jesus left His disciples with this command in Luke 9:23, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”
If we want to experience the joy and delight that our Spirits long for, then we must stop looking for that joy in our assignments and instead look for it in the relationship we have with Christ. Actively denying ourselves, not being afraid to carry our cross, and be utterly surrendered to our Savior.
5. Our joy does not always come in the assignment, but it will always come in our calling!
Today I want to challenge you. What are you currently trying to find your joy in? Have you been drifting around looking for your purpose? Have you avoided doing tasks that don’t seem enjoyable? Have you ultimately surrendered your life to Him?
Let’s pray.