00:00: When I think about Christmas, and I focus in on that first Christmas, on the birth of Christ, it strikes me that the most amazing thing about Christmas is not simply the birth of a baby boy, or even that this particular baby was God himself, become a human being, but that God had come into creation as a human being to accomplish something.
00:30: It wasn't random.
00:30: It wasn't purposeless.
00:34: It was that God had in mind to do something that could not be done, could not be accomplished, except by God becoming a person.
00:48: There was something that was so extraordinary that God wanted done that Jesus became incarnate.
00:57: We saw last week in Acts 2.23 and Acts 4.28 that Jesus' death on the cross was no accident, that it was no last-minute improvisation by God.
01:11: It was the deliberate, foreknown, premeditated, predestined, definite plan of God.
01:17: And if we had somebody asking us, well, what was that plan?
01:22: What did God want to accomplish?
01:23: The correct answer is, of course, salvation.
01:26: God wanted to save, to rescue people from the guilt and consequences of their rebellion against God.
01:35: And we do that every day, whether it's by ignoring God and marginalizing him, whether it's by disobeying God's design for our lives in explicit ways, intentionally, which happens, or unintentional, where we're so misinformed about how the world works and how God has designed it that we're living contrary to God's design, oblivious.
01:59: God planned this rescue, and he brought it to pass, and Jesus had to become one of us to do it.
02:09: But what motivated God to do this?
02:13: We know what the plan is and what it accomplished, but what was going on in the heart of God as he did this?
02:20: And I don't think we can boil it down to one thing, but this morning I want us to focus in on one thing.
02:26: Not that it's the entirety of it, but just this one facet of it.
02:31: It wasn't duty.
02:31: It wasn't obligation.
02:34: God was not obliged to rescue anyone.
02:38: One of the reasons, one of the motivations for Jesus coming and going to the cross was joy.
02:51: Joy.
02:51: When you think of Christmas, what emotion do we most readily associate with Christmas?
02:58: Joy, right?
02:59: And not because of family get-togethers and presents and decorations and trees, though we might enjoy those things, but even in the Christmas carols, when we think about joy in the Christmas-themed songs, it's most essentially joy to the world.
03:13: The Lord has come, right?
03:14: The fact that Jesus has entered into creation as one of us is cause for joy.
03:22: Jesus came for joy.
03:25: And he came for his own joy.
03:28: In Hebrews chapter 12, verses 1 to 3, we get some instructions from God that are really profound when you stop and think about it.
03:40: Hebrews 1, 12, 1 through 3 says, Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set out before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
04:18: The most famous passage in Hebrews is chapter 11.
04:25: It's that hall of fame of faith where the author reminds us about the saints that have gone before us and have experienced great victories and great sufferings as they followed God by faith.
04:36: And then in chapter 12, he transitions, he says, Since we've got all these examples to encourage our faith, let's keep going.
04:43: Let's persevere.
04:45: Let's stick to living by faith.
04:49: But as we do that, we have to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus.
04:51: Now, there's so many things he could have said there about what is it about Jesus that we should take note of.
05:00: But he chose to say that Jesus is the founder and perfecter of our faith and that Jesus, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross.
05:13: He tells us that Jesus was motivated by future joy when he went through the hardship of the cross.
05:21: And we're supposed to not only know that, so, oh, that's what happened, but we're supposed to get that, to understand that, so that we don't get worn down and weary in the Christian life.
05:34: This is to be a tool, a fuel to help us keep going as Christians.
05:41: I can't be the only person in this church family that gets weary sometimes.
05:45: I can't be the only person that gets frustrated at times with long-term difficulty when I'm following Jesus.
05:55: The book of Hebrews has a lot to say about endurance in the Christian life.
05:59: And right here, we're told that Jesus is our example in endurance, that Jesus is the joy seeker that we are to emulate.
06:10: Jesus is the one who says, I'm going to keep going because there's joy up ahead, and I'm going to lay hold of that joy.
06:18: And we're supposed to say, me too.
06:20: That's what I want to do.
06:22: So that we don't grow weary and lose heart.
06:25: Verse 2, Jesus, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
06:40: Does that revolutionize your thinking about following Christ?
06:45: I think it's really easy to think, oh, I follow Jesus.
06:48: I need to follow the rules.
06:49: I need to do the stuff that I'm supposed to do and quit doing the stuff I'm not supposed to do.
06:54: And those are true.
06:55: But do you realize that behind all of that is Jesus saying, I want you to be happy.
07:06: I want you to be really, truly, deeply satisfied happy.
07:12: I want joy for you.
07:15: And God is saying that he knows better than us what the path of joy looks like.
07:20: When we choose sin, we choose shallow pleasures.
07:27: When something far better is offered.
07:34: Jesus, the perfect one, the sinless one, sought his own joy.
07:41: Now, that means that there's a right, proper way to seek your own joy.
07:47: God is not against you pursuing joy.
07:49: In fact, God commands it.
07:53: In the Old Testament, one of the critiques that God had of his people Israel was that they refused to be happy in God.
08:01: Wow.
08:03: If we insist on being happy in decorations, in hobbies, in sports, in recreation, in our houses, in our cars and hobbies and toys and whatever, instead of God?
08:16: God said, no.
08:17: No, that's not okay.
08:20: There's something better.
08:23: If Brad said, oh, I love being married.
08:28: I get clean laundry.
08:31: There's food on the table at dinnertime.
08:33: I leave a mess and it gets picked up.
08:36: Oh, marriage is great.
08:38: I'd say, oh, Brad.
08:40: No, no, no, no.
08:42: That's not what marriage is.
08:44: And I'm going to join Courtney in smacking you upside the head on that, right?
08:48: Because the joy of marriage is not that maybe your wife does these things, but rather that you get to be with your wife.
08:58: The joy of that relationship.
09:00: There's something so much better for you and for me than we can have apart from Jesus.
09:09: There's joy.
09:10: Jesus, the eternal, uncreated God of the universe, chose to enter into human history by becoming one of us.
09:18: And he lived the perfect life that you should live and don't.
09:21: The perfect life that you're not even going to pull off for a day.
09:27: And me either.
09:29: And then he died the death that we deserve in our place.
09:31: He substituted himself for us.
09:33: And then God raised him from the dead, victorious over sin and death and guilt and shame.
09:39: And God will raise us from the dead who trust in Jesus as our substitute.
09:45: He'll raise us up to an eternity of joy with him.
09:48: God will give us credit for Jesus' righteousness, even as he gave Jesus credit for our sins.
09:56: Imagine if you had two resumes.
09:58: One that listed every screw up in your life.
10:02: That's a resume you don't want to show anyone.
10:05: You don't want that to ever come out of the envelope.
10:09: And the other resume is Jesus' resume.
10:13: But God has scratched out Jesus and put your name at the top.
10:16: Jesus trades resumes with us when we trust in him.
10:24: And Jesus was motivated through all of this work for us for the joy set before him.
10:33: I think it would help us to say, what does that mean?
10:35: What does that look like?
10:36: What joy was set before Jesus?
10:38: What was the joy to be had on the other side of the suffering of the cross that Jesus desired?
10:45: And I think there's a number of facets to it.
10:47: Here's some of them.
10:49: Number one, Hebrews 12, 2 reminds us that after the cross, Jesus sat down at the right hand of God.
10:55: So I think part of Jesus' joy then must have been the joy of reunion with his heavenly father.
11:02: The joy of being back with his father in the fullness of what that experience is, to be in person there.
11:11: You travel for work maybe.
11:14: You have these long times of being away from home.
11:17: Maybe you're a trucker.
11:18: Maybe you travel for work.
11:19: And you finally get home.
11:20: And it's just so good to be reunited with your husband or your wife or your children.
11:26: The reunion of Jesus with his heavenly father.
11:31: Psalm 1611, as we already heard this morning, in your presence there is fullness of joy.
11:36: At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
11:39: That's what scripture tells us to expect in the presence of God.
11:42: To be with him is to have that.
11:45: Fullness of joy, pleasures forevermore.
11:48: And I guarantee you, God did not put that in the scripture.
11:51: So he's like, hey, it's going to be awesome, but don't desire it.
11:54: But no, he wants us to desire it.
11:56: It's not that we desire too much for ourselves.
11:59: It's that we don't desire enough of the really good stuff.
12:05: The joy of knowing the father had been Jesus' pleasure from before there was time.
12:12: But when Jesus went to the cross for us, he cried out, Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?
12:18: Jesus experienced the joy of that restored relationship on the other side of paying the debt of our sin.
12:26: I think it also has to do with the joy set before Jesus being the included, that included the restoration of divine authority and power.
12:36: Now that's a little bit tricky because Jesus is God, so he has divine authority and power.
12:40: And yet in his humanity, there's something somewhat different going on.
12:46: For him to, after the cross, after the resurrection, be seated at the right hand of God, is to be at the highest position of power and authority.
12:57: Jesus was granted such power by God after the cross.
13:01: In fact, in Matthew 28, 18, Jesus came to his disciples and said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
13:09: That, he doesn't say I've always had it, and that just always will be, though there's a sense of which that's true.
13:14: But he's talking about having done the cross, having been resurrected.
13:18: He says, God has given me a particular authority because of that.
13:25: I think also of Psalm 8, 6, which says, He has put everything under his feet.
13:34: The way that Hebrews 2, 8 and 1 Corinthians 15, 27 both quote that verse is as being about God the Father placing everything under Jesus' authority and control.
13:45: So there's something special about the authority and dominion and power that Jesus has on the other side of the cross.
13:54: The joy of victory.
13:56: The joy set before Jesus included the joy of victory over sin and the stain of sin in our lives.
14:00: Hebrews 1, 3 says, After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of majesty in heaven.
14:08: Part of what he wanted to do was to purify us from our sins.
14:14: In our house, Carrie happens to do the majority of the laundry.
14:18: If I try to help out, I usually mess something up.
14:21: You know, if I throw stuff in the door, No way, I had to double check this thing because the kid got this or that on it and whatever.
14:26: I had to make sure it came out, whatever.
14:27: But every once in a while, there's something that she'll bring to me and she'll say, I can't get this stain out.
14:34: I don't know why, but for some reason, it is my job.
14:37: It has become my job.
14:38: If there's a particularly tough stain, I got to deal with it.
14:42: And I have this system of time-tested trial and error.
14:48: That's really all it is.
14:49: And I will get out our cleaning toothbrush and try different stain removers and I'll work on it and whatever.
14:54: And more often than not, I'm able to get it out.
14:56: I don't know why, but somehow I have luck with it.
15:01: But I've got to get that stain out.
15:03: And it requires some elbow grease.
15:04: It requires some work.
15:05: It doesn't just happen.
15:09: Jesus did the work of purifying us of our sins.
15:16: You are tainted by sin by default.
15:19: And only through what Jesus did for you is that removed.
15:24: Do you remember the old tide commercials where they would have the stain depicted on the screen and they'd put it in the water in the tide and the stuff just floats off into the water?
15:33: That's kind of the picture I have in my head of my sin being removed from me because of Jesus.
15:38: We know that God has accepted the purification that Jesus made because God raised Jesus from the dead and placed Jesus at his right hand in power.
15:52: If Jesus had failed, God wouldn't put him at his right hand.
15:55: If he had failed, he wouldn't get to rise from the dead.
15:57: It was pointed out to me just recently that in John's gospel, there's this passage where Jesus is challenged and he basically says, hey, destroy this temple and in three days I'll raise it.
16:08: And we know that he's referring to his body and how he's going to be resurrected after three days.
16:11: If Jesus hadn't been resurrected, we shouldn't take him seriously.
16:17: We can't believe his teaching if he's not resurrected because that was part of what he said he was going to do.
16:23: I think joy for Jesus also had to do with being surrounded by the redeemed.
16:30: Jesus looked ahead to the joy of being surrounded and praised by those he had redeemed.
16:35: In Luke 15, verse 7, Jesus says, There will be rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents.
16:45: When one guilty sinner repents of sin and turns to Jesus, heaven celebrates.
16:54: There's a party.
16:54: We heard just this morning about multiple people coming to Christ.
16:59: Heaven is like, yes, wave, trusted in Jesus.
17:05: Now, I don't know if angels boogie, but I assume that they're doing whatever an angel equivalent of boogieing is.
17:11: They are celebrating.
17:12: They're like, yes, another one.
17:14: Good job.
17:15: Great job.
17:16: They are thrilled about that.
17:19: You know, we had this little smattering of, yay.
17:22: They're celebrating.
17:24: They are thrilled.
17:27: How thrilled would you be if it was your dearest unsaved family member that had just come to Christ?
17:36: Your spouse, your parent, your child.
17:38: It wouldn't be like, oh, my kid turned to Jesus.
17:42: What's for dinner?
17:43: Right?
17:44: You would be dominated by that.
17:46: You would be thrilled by that.
17:48: And I'm pretty sure heaven's joy is even more than ours would be.
17:52: There is a party going on.
17:55: Joy for every believer that turns to Jesus.
17:59: Now, no doubt there were other joys awaiting Jesus.
18:03: But there's something about these that we need to recognize.
18:06: The joy that was set before him was on the other side of the cross.
18:12: That joy was not to be grabbed hold of and received and experienced apart from Jesus' faithfulness to God through suffering and hardship.
18:23: It was only after Jesus embraced his father's will and died to self and walked through the suffering before him that Jesus received the joy of Hebrews 12 too.
18:35: It was for the joy set before him that Jesus endured the cross.
18:42: He wasn't hanging on to past joys.
18:44: He wasn't saying, this is a happy experience in the moment.
18:47: He was saying, there's something on the other side of this that I want that's going to make it so worth it.
18:57: I think that's how we are meant to go through hard things.
19:00: If Christ had to walk the road of suffering as necessary to obey the father and accomplish God's purposes in his life, so also us as children of God through faith in Christ, we have to go through that too.
19:12: Romans 8.17 says, if we are children, meaning of God, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings, in order that we also may share in his glory.
19:31: If we're children of God through faith in Jesus, we're headed to getting all the good things that Jesus has and gets, but we have to join Jesus in walking through suffering on our way to glory.
19:42: There's no shortcut.
19:43: It's not like Jesus suffered so that we don't go through hard things.
19:47: Jesus suffered so that we can actually get through those hard things to the glory and the joy on the other side.
19:55: The next verse, Romans 8.18.
19:56: I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
20:08: I have a love-hate relationship with that verse.
20:15: Do you?
20:17: Do you consider that your present sufferings are no big deal?
20:24: Sometimes when life's going basically pretty good, yeah, okay, yeah, suffering right now is not too bad.
20:28: But in your worst moments, in your hardest moments, your most painful losses, the times where you have no idea how God's going to work things out, where there's no light visible at the end of the tunnel, do those feel like no big deal?
20:42: I don't think so.
20:45: And yet, God's word here says that really big, hard things that we go through is not even worth comparing to what's coming.
20:59: This morning in Sunday school, we were talking about the parable of the mustard seed.
21:03: And if you've ever seen a mustard seed, they're tiny, which is the point, right?
21:07: The closest equivalent I can think of is they're a little smaller than a poppy seed.
21:11: And if that poppy seed or that mustard seed is the most severe suffering we have in this life, the glory and joy on the other side of suffering is a coconut.
21:23: It's like, how can you even compare these?
21:25: If you're looking for more, you go coconut every time.
21:29: You don't have to think about it, right?
21:32: That's the caliber difference that we're talking about.
21:36: Jesus came for joy.
21:40: Jesus walked through suffering on his way to joy.
21:42: And we are called to suffer with Christ on our way to glory and joy.
21:49: The level of which we can't even wrap our heads around at this stage.
21:53: In fact, Jesus came for the sake of our joy.
22:00: One of the verses read during the Advent wreath time was John 1511, which says, I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
22:15: Jesus said that to his followers.
22:16: I have said this.
22:17: I have taught you what I've just taught you.
22:19: So that my joy, Jesus' joy, may be in you, Jesus' followers, and that your joy may be complete.
22:27: Right?
22:27: That is amazing.
22:31: He's not saying, I've got joy and I want you to have joy.
22:36: He's saying, I want you to have my joy.
22:39: I want my joy to be transferred to you, given to you, replicated in you in some way.
22:45: I want you followers of Jesus to have the same joy that God himself has.
22:52: Now, I don't know how you compare God's joy and our joy on any kind of scale or measuring system, but I'm pretty sure it's got to be better.
23:01: I'm pretty sure that if you could sample each one, you wouldn't have to think long at all about which one you want.
23:07: Jesus taught his disciples the way he did and what he did so that his joy would become their joy and so that their joy would be complete.
23:21: Probably everyone here has a cell phone, if you're an adult at least.
23:25: And what's one of the most important bits of data on your cell phone?
23:30: Right?
23:30: It's the battery level.
23:32: Right?
23:32: I don't know about yours.
23:33: Mine gets to 15%.
23:34: It starts flashing like, hey, you got problems.
23:36: 15%.
23:37: Plug it in.
23:38: Charge it.
23:39: And it goes from 15 to 10 to 5 pretty quick.
23:42: It's like, hey, I don't want to freak you out, but panic.
23:44: Got to get charging.
23:45: Right?
23:46: You see that number and it's not full.
23:47: And you know that it's not going to carry you through the day.
23:52: Jesus is about bringing that number up to 100%.
23:55: Maximum joy charge.
23:59: That is God's desire for you.
24:02: Maxed out joy.
24:06: The author of Hebrews tells us, let us fix our eyes on Jesus.
24:16: Let me encourage you this morning as you're in this Advent season, fix your eyes on Jesus.
24:23: The author and perfecter of our faith.
24:28: Who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning a shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
24:37: Consider him, Jesus, who endured such opposition from sinful men.
24:42: This isn't just the cross.
24:43: It's all the opposition that he received on earth.
24:46: The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, the Romans, the mockers, the self-righteous religious people, and so on.
24:53: Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
25:03: Take your eyes off Jesus.
25:08: Your joy level is going to go down.
25:11: You're going to get tired out.
25:14: Discouraged.
25:16: Frustrated.
25:18: But keep your eyes on Jesus.
25:20: And God will keep you fueled with faith.
25:23: How can we endure the hard things in this life?
25:30: How can we get through the trials and temptations and difficulties and oppositions?
25:36: It only works if we fix our eyes on Jesus and emulate him, imitate him, by pursuing the joy that God has for us on the other side of suffering.
25:48: I'm pretty sure.
25:53: I'm going to step into dangerous territory and talk about women giving birth here.
25:59: I'm pretty sure that women who are pregnant, going into the point of labor, are not thinking simply about the moment.
26:11: And as they're waiting for that pregnancy to reach its conclusion, they're focused on what happens after delivery.
26:19: They're motivated by the joy of that new baby.
26:22: They're looking forward to holding the baby and cradling him or her and so on, right?
26:28: It's not the hardship that's the focus.
26:31: It's what lies on the other side of the hardship.
26:35: If I get that wrong, ladies, please don't kill me.
26:39: I saw some ladies nodding, so I think I'm okay.
26:41: Brothers and sisters, look up.
26:48: Look at Jesus.
26:51: And if you fix on him and follow him, even through the hard things, you're going to have divine joy filling your heart and life.
27:00: There is no alternative that will be nearly as satisfying and as joy-giving as walking with Jesus.
27:08: And from all the saints that have walked with him for years, God's people said, amen.
27:15: Let's pray.
27:16: God, help us to remember this saying no to sin and yes to Jesus is in our own best interest.
27:27: Help us to recognize that joy is to be had on the other side of faithfulness, even through hardship.
27:33: Cause us to reflect on Jesus, to think about what he went through as he obeyed the Father, as he set aside his own preferences and said, yet not my will be done but yours.
27:49: And help us to say we want to be like our older, better, perfect brother Jesus.
27:54: Fixing our eyes on him, pursuing the joy set before us.
28:00: You have offered us joy.
28:03: And this Christmas season, may we pursue it with eyes fixed on Jesus.
28:08: We pray this in his name.
28:10: Amen.