Luke 2:10, “And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
The first Christmas was the occasion of God's joy going public! Christmas is not God quietly slipping into the world. It is heaven going public. The celebration opened with a Heavenly Extravaganza by the greatest choir earth has ever known. The premier performance began when the Choirmaster, an angel of the Lord, appeared to a small audience of lowly shepherds in a Bethlehem pasture. The shekinah cloud of God's glory shone around the angel as he announced the theme of their presentation. He said, in essence, "I gospelize you with great joy." I bring you the greatest news this world has ever heard. Joy to the World the Lord Has Come!" And suddenly the curtain was lifted and there was with the angel of the Lord a choir made up of a multitude of other angels singing, "Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth peace toward men with whom He is well pleased!"
Joy to the world still remains God's goal. The Westminster Catechism asks the question: “What is the chief end of man?” Answer: “To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” (And I add, enjoying Him beginning Now and not just finally in in Heaven!). Paul says in 1 Timothy 6:17c, ".... he gives us richly all things to enjoy." We will one day fully and finally “enter into the joys of the Lord.” Jesus came as a man of joy and accomplished His mission because of “the joy that was set before him” (Heb 12:2). He said to his disciples, "My joy I leave with you." In Jn 17:13, "And now I come to Thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves."
Pastor Doug Wilson reminds us that “in this world, Christian joy is a bedrock sort of thing - and not the froth at the top of a wave. Joy is deep satisfaction in the will of God, and this must be coupled with a recognition of the reality that God’s will is everywhere and in everything. There is no place where we may go and be allowed to murmur or despair in that place because God’s will is somehow “not there.” In the carol we sing about joy to the world, we are dealing with the reality of sins and sorrows that grow, of thorns that infest the ground, and nations that need to have the glories of His righteousness proved. That proof will be found in our faith - a faith that spills over into joy.
The book of Luke begins with John the Baptist leaping for joy in his mother's womb. The joy increases in the presence of a baby born in a cow stable and ends with joy at an empty tomb in the presence of a risen, living Lord (Read Lk 24:52,53). Luke continues to unfold the goal of God in the experience of bringing joy to the world in the book of Acts. The disciples, filled with the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, were so exultant, so excited, so joy‑filled, that the people accused them of being drunk with new wine! The converts at Pentecost came together with "gladness and singleness of heart." Wherever the gospel came in power there was "great joy in that place." Paul writes, "Rejoice (i.e. celebrate!) in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice." Peter writes about "joy unspeakable and full of glory."
William Tyndale described the Christian gospel as "good, merry, glad, and joyful tidings, that makes a man's heart glad, and makes him sing, dance, and leap for joy."
Are you ready for the question? Where has all the joy gone? Sherwood Wirt asks, "Is Christianity nothing more than a sorrowful and woebegone Via Dolorosa, i.e. a pathway of sorrows? Is our existence on this planet a cosmic tragedy, and is the Bible a moralistic stepmother, a Miss Manners directing us to quit whatever we are doing and do something else?" No! Ten thousand times NO!
Beloved, isn't it time we reopen the greatest of Christmas gifts, i.e. Joy to the World, and ask Lord, restore unto me the JOY of His salvation?
Joy Exists in God's Person in Heaven – Luke 2:10
The angel said, "I bring you good tidings of great joy." Bring from where? From God in heaven! Paul writes in 1 Tim 1:11 of the "gospel of the glory of the blessed God." Which literally translated means, "the good news of the glory of the happy God." Pay close attention because I have wonderful news, God is the gloriously happy God! Thank God, who would want to spend eternity with an unhappy God! The infinite happiness of God consists in the enjoyment of His Son. The Bible teaches that the eternal God has always had a perfect image of himself ‑ Jesus(Col 1:15); a perfect radiance of his essence ‑ Jesus (Hebs 1:3); a perfect imprint of His nature ‑ Jesus (Hebs 1:3); a perfect form or expression of His glory ‑ and his name is Jesus (Phils. 2:6)!
Here’s unfathomable good news - God is delighted to be God! When you think of God, which of these words represents your thinking ‑ sternness, wrath, solemnity, gloom ‑ or joyousness, gladness, delight, pleasure, jubilation?
There is only one fountain of lasting joy - the overflowing gladness of God in God! Without beginning, without ending, without source and without cause. And God wants to share that joy with the world.
Before God made the world, he first made angels. He then gave them a front seat to his next act ‑ creating the world. And when they saw what he did and the joy with which he did it, they sang together and shouted for joy! (Job 38:7)
Joy Enters by Jesus' Birth in Bethlehem - 2:10‑11
Joy filled the hearts of those God sent to the babe - Luke 1:28, “And having come in, the angel said to her, "Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!" What he said was “hail” and “O Joy! No wonder C.S. Lewis said, "Joy is the serious business of Heaven."
Joy was Exemplified in Jesus' Life on Earth
When you think of Jesus, do you think of a face like that seen on the Shroud of Turin? Do you think of a person that is morose, driven, and sorrowful? Or do you think of a man of radiant inner joy, a man with a genuine enthusiasm for life? Jesus was a man of perfect joy. But you say what about Isaiah 53 referring to him as a man of sorrows? Yes, he knew sorrow, but it was imposed upon him from without and did not come from within nor affect his joy. Jesus was a man of such joy, such exuberance, such gladness, such happiness, such freedom and openness that he was most enjoyable to be around.
Joy comes through his work as Savior – Luke 2:11b; Mt 1:21, “Unto you is born this day a Savior." Man's Great Need and God's Great Provision meet in the word "Savior." The word "Savior" indicates a problem. Because man is in sin, he is in trouble with the law of God. A Savior is born means that Jesus is fully identified with me - even with my sins, though He Himself was not guilty of sin. It means that from His conception and birth as a human being, for the very first time in all of God's Eternal History, He now has a mortal nature, a nature capable of dying. Herb Hodges, said "The universe is the stage, Jesus is the Script; our redemption is the plot, and with His Birth, the stage is SET!
Joy Comes from His Being God's Christ – 2:11 - The word "Christ" is the Greek word for anointed, thus the "Messiah." The baby in the manager in Bethlehem was none other than the long‑promised, long‑prophesied, long‑predicted, long‑expected, long‑awaited Messiah of Israel. He was the One appointed and anointed in Heaven, and anticipated and announced on earth. God's anointed. Ps 45:7, "... therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions."
Joy was in him, upon him and set before him ‑ Luke 10:21, "Jesus rejoiced in Spirit and said I thank thee O Father." He began his ministry with the Sermon on the Mount which begins with eight blessed's - an octave of blessednesses ‑ a perfect tune of joy! The word “blessed in the Greek shouts with its significance. It declares "O the bliss of being a Christian. O, the joy of following Christ. O, the sheer happiness, the joyous thrill, the radiant gladness of knowing Jesus as Lord and Savior!
Hebrews 12:2 states that he stayed under the pressure of the cross due to the JOY set before him. The joy of knowing that he was bringing a vast number of sinners into sonship status and unto the joy of the Lord. The joy of knowing that he was obeying the Father's will perfectly and honoring and exonerating the Father's name. The joy of knowing that he would make his blessing flow far as the curse is found, and that sin and sorrow would one day grow no more, nor thorns infest the ground.
Joy was Experienced by Christ's Followers
In Jn 15:11, Jesus tells them that his intent was that "my joy may be in you and your joy be complete." In Jn 16:22, he tells them that when they see him after his death, "that their hearts would rejoice and their joy no man would take from them." Jn 20:20 declares that "Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord!"
On the day of Pentecost, there was such an exuberance of joy, such an illumination of mind, such an intensity of love, such a fullness of power, that those who saw them were perplexed and then said Men and brethren what must we do to get what you have?
Paul writes in Roms 14:17 that "the kingdom of heaven is not a matter of eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." He prays in Roms 15:13 that "the God of all hope may fill you with joy and peace in believing.”
A joyless Christian is a libel on his Master. Lack of joy makes the Christian life even more unappealing to the unbeliever. When people look at the church they don't often see people who are full of joy. More often they see, to use the words of Earnest Gordon, "people who have managed to extract the bubbles from the champagne of life."
Augustine said, "The Christian should be an alleluia from head to foot." Martin Luther said, "The Christian ought to be a living doxology." John Wesley said, "Sour godliness is the Devil's religion."
What is the meaning of the word? Joy is deep‑seated gladness in God, that lively pleasure of the soul which we experience as a fruit of the Spirit. Joy is a communicable attribute of God. It is gladness in God. It is too deep for circumstances to reach. It is too spiritual for natural emotions to manufacture. It is an enduring exultation of spirit that transcends trouble, leaps over walls of circumstances, that is glad even when sad. It comes to the end of life's journey and goes under the water's of the river of death and comes out on the other side shouting, It is well with my soul! Joy is persuaded that neither life nor death, nor things present nor things to come can separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. "O death where is thy sting, O grave where is thy victory!"
The Christian's joy is in retrospect, aspect and prospect! There is the joy of memory, of love, of hope. There is the joy of the peaceful conscience, the joy of the grateful heart, the joy of the teachable mind, the joy of the trustful soul, the joy of the adoring spirit, the joy of the obedient life, the joy of the glowing hope.
There are moments when joy is private - quiet smiles, tears wiped away, prayers whispered in the dark. And then there are moments when joy can no longer be contained.
Christmas is not the story of a quiet happiness tucked safely away. It is the story of the night when God’s joy went public.
Luke tells us that this joy didn’t begin in a palace or a temple. It broke out in a field. It startled shepherds. It lit up the night sky. Heaven could not stay silent any longer.
“I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”
This joy isn’t a giddy, praise the Lord I have no pain or problems type of experience or expression. Barbara Johnson summed it up when in the midst of horrible tragedy and suffering in her and her family’s lives, she declared, “Suffering is inevitable, misery is optional, and the joy of God is always available!”
God did not keep His joy private. He announced it. He embodied it. He entrusted it to ordinary people. And on this Christmas - this season - that same joy still goes public whenever Christ is welcomed, trusted, and proclaimed.
Joy to the world the Lord has come!
Merry Christmas!