The Blessing of Joy // An Abundant Life in Jesus, Part 8

I spent a good chunk of my life looking for happiness, but I never found what I was looking for. Problem with happiness is that it’s linked to our circumstances – can’t be happy if something difficult is happening. Turns out, I wasn’t looking for happiness at all.  What I longed for, was joy.  It’s just back then, I didn’t realise that, because I didn’t know what joy was.

I ask people this question, “what do you want out of life?” And 99% of them will answer, “I just want to be happy”. Why not? After all who wants to be sad all the time? Who wants to live out their lives in a darkness when the light of happiness beckons just around the corner? But you know happiness isn’t always what life dishes up is it? As much as we want to be happy all the time it just doesn’t seem to work out that way. In fact happiness, many times in our lives, can be an elusive quality.

And the reason is, pretty much, happiness depends on our circumstances, the things going on around us. I mean we’re not happy when we’re sick are we? We’re not happy when someone’s giving us a hard time. We’re not happy when we’re struggling financially or when someone we love is suffering or whatever it is. There are lots of circumstances where happiness simply can’t co exist with what’s going on in our lives. Would you agree?

So as much as it’s something just about everyone aspires to it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be. Happiness is linked to our circumstances and when we say that we want to be happy what we’re really saying is that we want all of our circumstances to be favourable all of the time. ‘Easy street’, that’s happiness. Well my friend life just isn’t like that is it?

And so when we come back to looking at this promise that Jesus made about an abundant life it’s easy to imagine that it’s a sham. It’s an unrealistic promise. The sort the politicians make before an election only to renege once you’ve voted them in. I’m not saying all politician’s promises are like that but you know what I’m saying. In my country at least many of the promises made during an election will never eventuate.

And so happiness is a bit like the mirage in the desert, it can be illusory. Jesus said:

The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that you may have life and have it abundantly.

Now surely if I’m going to have an abundant life like Jesus promised here, surely I’d have to be happy, right? Well in unpacking and understanding this promise so far this week we’ve been looking at how the Apostle Paul summed up what the Kingdom of God is all about in our lives. People back then when Jesus and later the disciples were going around talking about God’s Kingdom, people imagined it was something physical, that there was this Roman Empire that was THE kingdom, they’d taken over the whole known world.

But there’d been other kingdoms before that. So they were kind of expecting Jesus to come riding in on His shiny white steed with His sword held high, leading a mighty army to boot the Romans out of Israel. That pretty much was what the Kingdom of God meant to them. But Jesus had quite a different take. In fact a completely different take, Luke chapter 17 beginning at verse 20:

Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God was coming and He answered, ‘the Kingdom of God isn’t coming with things that can be observed. Nor will they say look, here it is or there it is. For in fact the Kingdom of God is among you.

So when it comes to Jesus coming to this earth in order that we can have life and have it abundantly it makes sense to me not to look at it from a human perspective but from the perspective of God’s Kingdom. Which is why we’ve been unpacking Paul’s nutshell of what the Kingdom is all about in our lives; Romans chapter 14, verse 17:

The Kingdom of God isn’t about food and drink but about righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

And so far this week on the program we’ve looked at the first two of those. Righteousness, a right standing with God that we live out in relationship with Him and secondly peace, the sort of peace that Jesus brings, a peace that surpasses all understanding.

And as I said yesterday if we stopped and thought about this whole abundant life thing for just a little while and thought, “If I want an abundant life what would be right up there, right at the top of my list, numbers 1, 2 and 3?” I think we’d come up with the same list. Righteousness, a right standing with God; finally the enmity between us and God is gone; finally the threat of judgement is gone; finally we’re where we’re meant to be, back in relationship and right standing with God.

Secondly, peace. Is there anyone on this planet who doesn’t want to have peace in every part of their lives? The absence of strife. And thirdly joy. A deep delight that springs out of a relationship with God. A joy that transcends the ups and downs of life. A deep joy that’s there 24/7.

Now you know something, I spent the first 36 years of my life looking for happiness. I left no stone unturned in my quest for happiness. Maybe I’ll find it in wealth, maybe it’s the big house, maybe it’s the big expensive car, maybe it’s getting married, maybe it’s having children, maybe it’s status, career, fame, recognition. Winning at everything I set my hand to. It was all about winning for me back then.

Believe you me I looked under every rock, I was persistent and other than some fleeting experiences of happiness I never found it. I left no stone unturned. I tried everything but happiness wasn’t something that came to live in my life. I just could never find that. Why? Because unbeknown to me I wasn’t so much yearning for happiness, I was yearning for something deeper, something much more lasting and abiding.

What I was after was joy. And joy’s different to happiness in that it doesn’t rely on our circumstances. It doesn’t come from out there. The joy of the Lord comes from within. It’s a well inside us that bubbles up no matter what’s going on, on the outside.

Can I tell you? On my darkest days in life I have experienced the joy of the Lord. You can’t do that with happiness. To be happy things out there have to be on the up and up but I’ve experienced great joy right smack bang in the middle of great pain. How? Why? Because it’s a joy that comes from God and that well never runs dry.

Let’s listen again to what Paul wrote of the Kingdom of God was all about. Romans chapter 14, verse 17:

For the Kingdom of God is not about food and drink but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Do you see? Righteousness, peace, joy, they come when we’re immersed in the Holy Spirit. They come from Him not from us and Jesus described how this Spirit of God works through us. John chapter 7 beginning at verse 37:

Jesus was standing there, He cried out, ‘let anyone who’s thirsty come to me and let anyone who believes in me drink. As the Scripture has said, ‘out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’. Now He said this about the Spirit which believers in Him were to receive. For as yet there was no Spirit because Jesus was not yet glorified.

The joy of the Lord which comes from the Spirit of God within us is like that. It bubbles up and then it flows out of the centre of who we are, out of our hearts, out of our bellies like rivers. Not a tiny little stream, not even one modest or large river but rivers of living water. A Nile and a Ganges, and a Mississippi and a Rhine, and an Amazon; rivers of living water.

The Holy Spirit with His righteousness and peace and joy flows up out of us like a flood tide of blessing from rivers of living water into the lives of other people when we yield our lives, when we turn them back and live them for God. That’s what the Kingdom of God is and do you know what this overflow sounds like to me? It sounds like life in all its abundance and that’s exactly what Jesus promised.