Growing up, two things went hand in hand; food & Christmas. Me and my brothers loved all food at Christmas except one. Only one Christmas food we wouldn’t eat – fruitcake. Mom isn’t here this morning and fruitcake lovers, close your ears. Someone gave this to me this week:
The Top 8 Things to Do with Unwanted Fruitcakes:
8. Hold a fruitcake-tossing competition. Invite all your neighbours.
7. Use it as a weapon to fend off a home intruder.
6. Place it in the road as a speed bump to foil neighbourhood speedsters.
5. Place the fruitcake in the freezer. Once frozen, use as an ice pack.
4. My favourite: if you have a flat tire just shove the fruitcake onto the wheel studs, bolt 'er down and it will get you to a gas station.
3. The best use for fruitcakes is when you get one for a gift, you
simply save it until the following year and give it to someone else. Re-gift the fruitcake. It won’t get any drier than it already is.
2. Just take out all the good stuff, wrap it in Saran Wrap and send it onto the next person.
1. Fruit cake as an animal tranquilizer. Feed it too your pet and they
won't move for days afterward. Caution- use in small doses.
Fruit cake is just as hazardous to animals as it is to humans.
So, instead of fruitcake I’m gonna give you some candy canes to start this Christmas season off on the right foot. Take one and taste it. Nothing like Christmas candy canes!
This weekend we’re talking about joy; where it comes from, how to get it and how to keep it in your life and mine; the taste of joy.
Let me start by reading you a bit of the story of that first Christmas, the night Jesus was born from Luke 2:8-14 (NIV).
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manager.” Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests.”
Jesus is the “Good news of great joy – for all the people.” Now, that sounds like a promise we need to own this Christmas. Let me talk to you about a couple of ideas surrounding finding and keeping joy this Christmas season.
Joy and Happiness.
They don’t always go hand in hand. I think there is a huge misunderstanding in our culture of what the meaning of joy is. In our world we tend to equate having joy as being along the very same line as being happy. But what I would say is this, happiness is an emotion; joy is a principle. Joy is a truth, not a feeling. Let me explain.
In your mind, I’d like you to make a list of what would make you happy in life. Now, I don’t know your list, but a lot of times we tend to equate happiness with moments and things in our lives. If you were asked what would make you happy, you might answer with material things like: some more money, a nicer house, a new Dodge truck, a new Polaris 700, a new dress, a new pair of shoes.
Or you might answer with an experience, like: going to Hawaii, going to the lake for a weekend, going out for a nice dinner and a movie, having a good marriage and nice kids, having a challenging career, or simply taking a walk in the park or a touch from my wife.
Whatever your answer is, happiness tends to be associated with the emotional side of life; with what brings us pleasure or what we perceive would bring us pleasure or makes us happy.
Now, all these things are good and fine and some of them are even great, but what I need to point out is that most things on your “happy” list do not last forever. The cabin needs repairs, your Dodge truck wears out (not nearly as quickly as a Chev or a Ford), that nice house soon needs new flooring, shoes get out of style, sadly, even our closest relationships and the most challenging careers cannot sustain ongoing happiness in our lives.
Happiness is a feeling. It’s up and down and sometimes all over the place. It’s fleeting. Now joy on the other hand is a spiritual principle. Joy really has nothing to do with stuff or things or even experience. Instead, joy comes out of an inner sense of wholeness and completeness that only God can supply. Listen to a few quotes that try to describe joy:
“Joy is happiness. But it is more. It is a feeling of being intensely overwhelmed. It is an experience of incredible fullness and pleasure, a spiritual awareness that something has entered your soul. And you know that you will never be the same again.” W. Wiersbe
Another quote I read said this . . . “Happiness is part of joy, but in addition, there is a strong sense of being part of things, of being alive, of well-being and vitality. There is also a senses of being swept along by the force of God.”
Listen to what the Bible says about joy:
I Peter 1:8 (I love this verse) “Though you have not seen him, you love him, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.”
People, inexpressible joy is what should describe our spiritual journey. Surprising?
Jesus added this line in John 15:9-11. He said, “Remain in me, remain in my love, so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”
That word “complete” is what separates joy from happiness. Happiness can never be complete and it just doesn’t last. But joy is a gift from God that settles into the middle of your soul when you are walking in relationship with Jesus Christ. It is a sense of being in the embrace of God in whatever circumstance you find yourself in life.
So, the difference between happiness and joy is in the source. It’s an understanding of who is providing your joy. See, an experience of joy can simply be looking at a sunset or laughing hysterically with a friend or sensing the grace of God given through someone, poured out generously into your life. All of these can be moments of joy, complete joy, when we realize they are gifts from the One who loves us. When we realize that they are gifts from the One whose sole desire is to satisfy our souls.
The key to understanding joy is this: it’s in realizing that joy is a gift from God. As you walk with Him, He continues to pour into your life, regardless of your circumstances, regardless of stuff and things, and even regardless of people.
I Peter 1:8 “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.”
Joy is a gift that only God can supply, and it does not wear out, or grow old, or disappear.
However, there are a few things that can steal our joy. One line I just said is this, that God gives us joy regardless of our circumstances. Well, let’s talk about that for just a minute. The poet Byron said this, “men are the sport of circumstance.” I had one of these sporting circumstances this week.
On Monday we bought Christmas trees; picked them out, cut them off, brought them in, set them up. A big production, hot, messy, but the right thing to do. That was Monday.
Wednesday, one of the trees was dead. So Thursday night after work, when I am tired and edgy I came home to take down the tree and return it. There are needles all over. I get new one, cut it off, set it up. A messy production and it was 10 pm before it was all done. Merry Christmas! Byron – “men are the sport of circumstance”.
See, I think I’m like most of us. We would say that when things are “going our way” we feel a lot happier and we are much more joyful and a lot easier to live with.
Yet, have you ever stopped to think how few of the circumstances of life are really under our control? We have no control over the weather, the traffic, the stock market, other people, or Christmas trees that die in 2 days.
So, if joy depends on our circumstances we’re in trouble. We are the sport of circumstance and we must not let our joy rest in that.
Or, how about worry and joy? Think about it. How many of us spend hours and days worrying our lives away, worrying about most things we can’t change? Worry steals our peace and it steals our fulfillment in life. It even has physical consequences and many of you have been there. I have been, tossing and turning all night, longing for rest, but frustrated by nagging worries. So what usually happens in our society is we tend to find sleep at a drugstore. Most of us know we can’t buy rest, only God can give rest. Our joy is again stolen, by worry.
The third joy-stealer is people. Let’s face it, all of us have lost our joy because of people; who they are, what they say, and what they do. And there isn’t doubt, every one of us has contributed to making someone else unhappy. It works both ways. But we still have to live with people and work with people and we cannot run from them. Make the list. Who’s on yours?
People will steal our joy but we can’t live without them. So, in spite of circumstances, in spite of worries, in spite of other people, we must find joy. How?
Thankfulness and joy do go hand in hand
Let me tell you something that happened to me in the last week or so that shone a bit of light on things. Lately, and I’m being honest, I haven’t been too excited about life, Christmas, or early winter. I’ve been a bit grumpy, a bit like the grinch, and I guess its been showing.
So I’m having coffee with a friend of mine and he says, “so tell me what you’re most thankful for in the past 3 months? What accomplishment are you most proud of? What’s something to celebrate?” Guess what? I couldn’t think of even one thing. Finally I, squeaked out some lame response, “grumble grumble, well I guess this thing is going well” and his response to me was simple.
He said when you spend time pondering the good things in life, the blessings of God amidst the circumstances, what is going well, and what is succeeding and being blessed, it leads to a realization that there is joy inside of us. But- principle - when you’re not looking for the blessings of life or when you don’t have a thankful spirit, you shouldn’t be surprised when there is no joy to be found either.
So folks, if you are weighed down by worry or put off by people or if circumstances have stolen your joy, try this: try looking for blessings, try being thankful, try focusing on what God is doing in and around you. Here’s something Kim Getson gave me to read this week:
"In Africa there is a fruit called the 'taste berry,' so called because it changes a person's taste buds in such a way that everything eaten after it tastes sweet. Giving thanks is like a 'taste berry' in our lives. When our hearts are full of gratitude, nothing that comes our way will be unpalatable to us. Those whose lifestyle are marked by thanksgiving will enjoy a sweetness and joy in life . . .unparalleled by any other."
(Robert Strand, The Power of Thanksgiving (Evergreen Press, 2001)
If you can’t find joy, try being thankful.
Folks, for the next 15 days until we celebrate Christmas would you remember just one thing, no matter what your circumstances, no matter how much you have to worry about, no matter how many people/relationship troubles you have. Remember those things don’t govern your joy. Jesus does.
So focus on Him and what He is doing in and around your life. Taste that when you taste a candy cane. Celebrate what He is up to and then follow Him close. And as you follow you will be filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy. Soak that up and then pass it around this Christmas season. Taste joy this Christmas.
Listen to this amazing song about anticipated joy at Christmas:
Oh, come, oh, come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!
Oh, come, our Wisdom from on high,
Who ordered all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!
Oh, come, oh, come, our Lord of might,
Who to your tribes on Sinai's height
In ancient times gave holy law,
In cloud and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!
Oh, come O Rod of Jesse's stem,
From ev'ry foe deliver them
That trust your mighty pow'r to save;
Bring them in vict'ry through the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!
Oh, come, O Key of David, come,
And open wide our heav'nly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!
Oh, come, our Dayspring from on high,
And cheer us by your drawing nigh,
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!
Oh, come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Oh, bid our sad divisions cease,
And be yourself our King of Peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel! |
