Joys Multiplied: Rooted in Presence, Resilient in Hardship

 

 

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Let’s pray.

Lord, I thank you again for being with us. God, this is such a radical statement that we would believe and we don’t say it lightly. We say, “You are with us.” The God of the universe, the holy God, the faithful God, the maker of heavens and earth — You are with us.

And so, we want to experience this here, this being together in Your presence, fully aware of Your presence, and that You speak and that You invite and that You challenge and that You convict. And so, we just open ourselves up to You in Your presence. In Jesus’ name, amen.

This is an exciting time in Foothills history. We have just finished a few-month process of discerning prayerfully the vision statement for our community, for this church, for this place at this time. How does God want us to live? What is the vision He’s inviting us to pursue?

And so, we’re kind of walking through this as a church, this vision statement. We are doing this in this Easter season. Again, I’ll remind you every week that Easter is not just one Sunday. It is a 50-day season in the church calendar, which reminds us — it is a season to set aside to say, “Hey, Jesus has risen from the dead. He’s defeated death. He’s defeated sin. And we can live in fullness of life.”

And so, on Easter Sunday and this whole season of Easter, we’re reminding ourselves: listen, you are dead to sin and fully alive to love. You are fully alive to love. Jesus lived, died, rose from the dead, ascended to the heavens because He wants us to live, to be fully alive, and not just live lives of normalcy, not live lives of just trying to survive, but to thrive, to live lives of love.

And so, we’ve been talking about, well, if we are dead to sin and fully alive to love, what might that look like? And we’ve said our vision is that together a people is formed that pursues God first. We pursue God.

And this is an oxymoron, a paradox, because God never left. He’s right near you. He’s with you. So it’s hard to pursue someone who’s right here. But what we mean by that is we are often not awake to the presence of God in our midst.

And so, to pursue God is to become awake to the God who has never ceased to be present and in pursuit of you. He’s right there, ready for you to just receive His love.

And then we talked about reflecting that light, the light of Jesus. If you are living in the nearness of God, like you are dwelling in His presence, that’s going to change you. That’s going to transform you. That’s going to change your heart. It’s going to change your priorities. It’s going to change your posture toward people.

As you receive the forgiveness of God, you’re going to want to share forgiveness with others. As you receive love from God, you’re going to want to love others. As you receive freedom from addiction and from bitterness and from anxiety, you want to help others experience that same freedom.

So we reflect the light of Jesus. The light is not our own, but we are mirrors reflecting the beautiful light of God into the world.

And so we do this in order to see burdens shared. Carl — where are you, Carl? There you are, Carl. Carl shared last week a beautiful sermon. We share our burdens because pain persists, sin persists, suffering persists, division, decay, death, polarization. We suffer.

And so, as a people redeemed by God, who God is near to us and shares our burdens, we share one another’s burdens. And that becomes our glory, our joy.

Which leads us — it’s not just about pain. It’s not just about suffering. It’s about joy. Joy in the midst of pain.

And that’s what we’re talking about today, that as a people in pursuit of God, reflecting the light of Jesus, whose burdens are shared, we will be people that multiply joy in the world.

So that’s where we’re at. That’s where we’re going to land today. We’re going to talk about joy.

I want to talk to you about my friend Brandi, who is a part of my afternoon church. She has really had a hard life in general, but a really hard season of life.

She spent every waking moment with her mom. They were like this — her, her mom, her dogs — always together, never apart. Driving together, shopping together, living together, sleeping together. They had a one-bedroom apartment, so they probably shared a bed. They were just always together.

Eight months ago, her mom had a heart attack in the middle of the night and died. She’s never lived on her own, and she’s struggled.

Then she met a man who she thought was going to be there for her, and then after a couple months, he abandoned her after taking her check. And so she’s been alone and has been struggling.

We’ve been trying to help her, come alongside her, share burdens. She was in a homeless shelter with her two dogs. We had an event as a church last week, and she drove up. She gets out of the car with a smile on her face, and she’s got a shirt that says “Joy… Full” — a Christmas shirt.

And I’m looking at this and thinking, this is the picture that we’re talking about. Brandi is actually not happy. She’s not happy. Her life stinks. Her life hurts. She’s confused. She’s tired. She’s dirty. She’s not certain of where her future is.

She’s not happy, but she has joy.

What does that mean? How is that possible?

And here’s the important thing we need to realize: happiness is rooted in circumstances, but joy is rooted in relationship.

“Happiness is rooted in circumstances, but joy is rooted in relationship.”

Look at that slide. Oh my goodness.

Joy is rooted in relationship. Happiness — we can feel happy. It’s good to feel happy. But that’s very dependent on circumstances. That’s like, “I got ice cream. I’m happy.” You know? You can have happiness and not joy, though, right? You can be happy — “Oh, this is good. My dopamine is kicking in. Woo, sugar high!” — but desperately sad on the inside.

And that sense of joy is connected to relationship, connection to people, or connection to God.

This goes back to Psalm 16:11. I love this. The psalmist says:

“You make known to me the path of life;
You will fill me with joy in Your presence,
with eternal pleasures at Your right hand.”

I like this because, “You make known to me the path of life.” And for good reason, we want to know the way of Jesus. We want to know the path of life. We want to know the rules or the way to live. Sometimes that’s what Christianity becomes about — “Oh, this is the way you live.”

But that’s not the full package. Presence. Communion with your Creator. And it’s in relationship that a life of righteousness moves.

Presence — in the presence of God is your joy. The pleasures that you experience in His presence is fullness of joy.

Jesus again repeats this in John 15. A combination of this is a longer passage, you can look it up, but He says:

“Remain in Me, and I also remain in you.”

There’s an invitation here. Remain in Me. Intimate connection.

“I have told you this” — why did He tell you this? Why does He invite you into relationship, intimate connection?

“I have told you this so that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”

Whole. Full.

I don’t know — have you heard of this experiment that psychologists ran, I think before they had ethics in place? But it still teaches us something about the human experience. It’s called the “still face experiment.”

What they would do is put a mother with her child in a room, and they would connect, as mothers and children do, right? As Kyle and Gisela are doing right now, and as Catherine and Ben are doing right now. They’re not here because they have new babies.

And what’s happening right now is that they are holding their children full of delight. Right? And that baby is this close, and they’re smiling and cooing, and the baby’s feeding off of that delight, that joy of being in the presence of a mother that cares.

Well, in this experiment they say, “Do the normal mom thing. Oh yes, be with the child,” and then go dead face. No expression.

And they observe what the baby does. How does the baby respond?

First, the baby’s demeanor changes. They’re a little confused. And then when it doesn’t get feedback, it starts reaching out more and more, trying to get feedback, starting to cry, becoming disoriented, screaming, and then ultimately crumbling — just devastated, disoriented, undone.

Why?

Because human beings are meant for relationship. They’re meant for connection. They’re created to be in the presence of someone that is glad to be with them. And when that’s removed, it’s devastating.

And here’s the deal: our world, and even this room, is full of people who have lost the sense that they are in the presence of a God who is glad to be with them.

And they’re searching. They’re anxiously striving to get God’s attention, trying to perform, trying to act out, trying to do anything until ultimately we’re just disoriented and grasping at anything — drugs, alcohol, unhealthy relationships, whatever — to get what we need.

It’s a lack of joy. It’s a lack of joy. It’s a disorientation that comes from a lack of presence.

So we can say that joy is ultimately — taking neuroscience into account, the Scriptures into account, the way we were created — joy is being in the presence of someone who is glad to be with you.

That’s where joy comes from.

So it’s relational.

I was just thinking of this too. Why do we love dogs so much? Any cat people in here? Please, it’s okay if you raise your hand. Thank you, Matthew. It’s a safe place.

Cats are great. I don’t know, I haven’t had the experience of cats. But one thing about dogs is it seems that why we like them — and maybe more mature people like cats because they’re not so needy — but maybe dogs give us that glad presence, don’t they?

No matter what, you walk into a room, no matter how you look, no matter how well you’ve done, no matter how lazy you’ve been, no matter if you’ve accomplished a lot or a little, what’s that dog doing?

He’s happy to be with you. He’s happy to be in your presence. And you’re experiencing the gladness of another creature that’s glad to be with you.

And can you even feel the little joy? The little joy of being in the presence of someone who’s glad to be with you?

That’s joy. That’s what we were meant for.

I think God is good to give us that picture in creation, that experience even in our animals.

I love this idea that joy is the experience of being fully welcomed, fully accepted, regardless of what you bring through the door.

And here’s the good news — this is the good news we don’t always believe. In a world of people anxiously striving to get this love, this acceptance, desperately trying to get the attention of people, get the attention of God, wondering if they’re fully known and fully loved, the good news is:

God is glad to be with you.

Do you believe that?

We believe it here. Lord, may we believe it in the depths of our soul, that we would believe that if we’re in the presence of God, God is glad to be with us no matter what we bring through the door.

And that changes everything.

Jesus is what shows us this most fully and perfectly. And Jesus is what makes this possible, right? For this gladness, this experience of joy.

John 10:10 — I’m just going to remind you why Jesus came: that you would have life. He is more obsessed with life than your sin. Sin is a barrier to life, so we talk about it. He dealt with it. But He wants you to live. He wants you to be fully alive.

So He came that you would have life and have it abundantly, have it fully. And in His presence is fullness of joy.

“Remain in Me, and I in you, that your joy may be complete.”

This whole thing is about joy.

Why is the church so often not a joyful place? Maybe it’s distorted views of God that distort our experience of the world, distorted views of one another.

So let’s just talk about it. The source of joy — we’ve talked about it a little bit — but where does joy come from?

I’m just going to give you two “P’s.” It’s the presence of God and the promises of God. And that’s what allows joy to be experienced no matter what.

That’s the joyful experience of Brandi. It’s because of the presence of God, the presence of other believers, and the promises of God.

So let’s go all the way back to the garden. When humanity sins, they reject God. They kind of reject His joyful presence, right? And then they experience shame and they hide.

And I love it — remember, God pursues them. He goes and finds them. He looks for them. He doesn’t say, “Forget them. I’ll start over.” He doesn’t turn His back. He goes and looks for them, wanting to restore relationship.

And so they are banished from the garden. Sometimes we confuse that for being banished from His presence, separated from Him. But God goes with them. Banished from the garden, but not from His presence.

Even in exile, even in brokenness, even in the wilderness, even in slavery, even in bondage, you see the story of Israel is always God’s presence with God’s people and a call, an invitation, a reminder:

“I’m with you. I’m with you. I’m with you.”

I love Genesis 3:15. Right after Adam and Eve are found naked and afraid and ashamed, God finds them, walks with them, and speaks this promise in the garden right from the beginning.

He’s actually speaking to the serpent. He says:

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel.”

Theologians call this the protoevangelium. You want to say that out loud? Protoevangelium five times fast.

This is the pre-gospel. This is the first gospel. Right at the moment of sin and separation and shame and guilt entering the world, God speaks promise. He speaks good news that there will be One to come who will defeat Satan.

And I love — anytime you go to a Roman Catholic church or somewhere, you’ll often see a statue, and I always try to look for this. Not all of them have it, but many do. The statue of Mary — she’s usually looking down, and at her feet, almost always artistically represented, will be a serpent underneath her sandal.

Crushed.

The head of the serpent. The offspring of the woman will defeat Satan, sin, and death.

So out of this world shattered by sin, God promises a Deliverer, one born of a woman who will one day crush the serpent’s head.

And so it’s in Jesus, the offspring of this woman, that God’s presence and God’s promises come together and are made certain.

God promises restoration. God promises presence. And in Jesus we see God’s presence and promises most fully realized and guaranteed.

What is the name, the title, that Jesus often has? Emmanuel.

Emmanuel — God with us. God with us. God with us.

He has not left us. He has not forsaken us. He is with us.

Jesus, I believe, was so magnetic and attractive because He was glad to be in the presence of people, and people experienced someone who was absolutely glad to be with them.

And this is despite the fact that they were dumb fishermen. This is despite the fact that they were people caught in adultery, or women at the well, whether they were high social status or low social status, or lepers full of disease. It didn’t matter.

They experienced someone glad to be with them.

And they experienced joy. They experienced what they were made for.

The most joyful person in the world.

And I love the announcement to the shepherds in Luke 2 when the angels say:

“Do not be afraid.”

Do not be afraid. Stop grasping for attention. Stop anxiously striving to get joy.

“I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah.”

Great joy.

This first announcement of Jesus’ arrival on the earth — He’s a source of joy.

So because joy is rooted in the presence of God and in the promises of God, this is where Brandi’s story starts to enter in. She was not happy, but she was joyful.

And this is why Jesus can say crazy stuff like:

“Blessed are those who are persecuted.”

“Rejoice when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on My account. Rejoice and be glad.”

Why?

Because joy holds up in hardship.

Joy isn’t rooted in circumstance. It’s rooted in presence and promise. And God’s presence and promise are always sure and certain.

And so we experience the joy, the relationship of someone glad to be with us no matter what we’re going through.

Joy isn’t defeated by hardship, struggle, or suffering.

I love — and Jesus demonstrates this.

Did you ever notice Hebrews 12:2?

“For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross.”

This is Jesus on the cross, suffocating, having been whipped. “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.”

What’s the joy that was set before God? The joy that allowed Him to endure the cross?

I believe the joy that sustained Jesus through the cross was the joy of what the cross would make possible. And that’s the restoration of relationship between God and His people. The experience of finally and fully being in the presence of God, as was intended in the beginning — to walk in the garden, to be in the presence of a God who is glad to be with you.

And that’s being restored completely.

And the same Jesus says He’ll never leave us or forsake us because He’s faithful. And in Corinthians it says every promise of God is a “yes” and “amen” in Christ Jesus.

The promise of His presence is fulfilled in Jesus, and that’s what we can hold on to.

And that’s why we can rejoice in persecution and rejoice in hardship, or rejoice through cancer or addiction or homelessness or divorce or whatever we’re going through.

That’s why it’s not Pollyanna. It’s not “skip through it,” fake it, put on a smile. It’s not happiness.

You can be devastated. You can be sad and experience joy, knowing that God’s presence is with you and the promise of restoration is sure.

That’s what gets us through.

So James says:

“Consider it pure joy when you encounter various trials of many kinds, knowing that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”

It’s not because suffering is good, but because the good God is with you in the midst of it. It’s His presence.

All right, so that brings us to this vision statement:

Joy is to be multiplied.

Joy is multiplied. Joy grows exponentially. A little joy goes a long way. It multiplies. It grows.

And this is the movement of the kingdom of God in the world. This is a movement of joy. The world is desperate for it.

So this joy is not meant to be kept for ourselves. To experience being in the presence of someone who is in the presence of God, who is glad to be with them — it’s contagious. You will spread that joy, and the world is desperate for it.

And this joy is one of the most important gifts we have to offer to the church and to the world.

I love 1 John 1:1–4. There are a lot of beautiful things in there, but they’re writing this letter and saying, “We’re writing this letter so that you can be in relationship. We saw, we touched, we were with this God, this Jesus. We touched Him. We were with Him. And we want to share about Him.”

Why?

“So that our joy may be complete.”

Because it’s not just enough.

This might be heresy — this is off the cuff, so I’ll let you discern — but I don’t think joy, being in God’s presence alone, is enough, because that’s not how God created it.

Again, it could be heresy.

He intends a world, a people, to experience the joy of God together.

They say, “We write these things that your joy may be complete.” Notice that — our joy.

They were already with Jesus. They already had the glad presence of God with them. But there were people not experiencing it. So: “Come on. Join the party.”

This is what the world is all about. It’s why all creation rejoices in the glad presence of God.

And so I want to bring you into this.

Joy grows in community.

We multiply joy.

And this is why we exist as a church. Not to perform. Not to impress people. Not even to attract people. But to help people experience what it is to be seen, no matter what they bring through the door, with gladness.

To be welcomed by God and by one another no matter what they look like, no matter what they’ve done, no matter how prickly they are, no matter how they’ve sinned against you.

Like, we want you. You’re wanted. You’re seen. You’re valued.

All right, I’ll wrap this up here.

How do we cultivate this kind of joy?

Again, that’s a bit of a paradox. This is a fruit of the Spirit. Last time I checked, a tree doesn’t try to grow fruit, right? It abides. It receives from the soil and the water.

But I want — first of all — we need to be with the God who delights to be with you.

Joy comes from being in God’s presence.

That baby — attachment theory, all of it — the more a child is in the loving, caring, providing presence of a parent, the more healthy that person will be as an adult.

And when that’s taken away, we have anxious or avoidant attachment disorders, and we see that all over the place. All of us have it to a certain extent because we weren’t perfectly loved and provided for.

But God does.

So we need to be with the God who delights in us.

And so by that, I mean we need to be in Scripture. We need to be in prayer. We need to be in worship.

But I also want to invite you into something a little more.

To sit consciously aware that God’s presence is closer than you realize — even in you, around you.

You breathe in and breathe out the presence of God.

Would you sit silently, enjoying the presence of God, and then pay attention to what kind of pictures of God come to your mind?

Is He frowning? Is He disappointed? Is He annoyed? Does He want you to do better? Is He asking you to perform more? “If you would just have done better, I would be glad.”

No.

He’s glad. He’s glad. He’s glad you’re with Him. He’s glad to be in your presence no matter what.

Just sit with God.

And then I would say: limit exposure to things that bring shame.

Shame is the opposite of joy. Shame is being in the presence of someone not glad to be with you, or being in the presence of someone who is glad to be with you only if you would make some adjustments to who you are. If you smelled a little better, if your makeup was a little better, if you were a little more successful.

Shame says you are not enough. You need something more, or you need to be less, or you need to be better, or whatever — and then I’ll be with you.

Joy says you are welcome as you are in His presence.

So I think we need to identify the voices in our life and in our culture that bring shame, that feed habits, and step away from them.

I’ll just name one of these things. It could be people. It could be other practices. But — phones.

Here’s my phone. My phone’s over there. Never too far away.

We are meant to live in the gaze and the glow of a God who delights to be with us. Most of us are living in the gaze and the glow of a constant feed that produces shame, discontentment, comparison.

Not good enough. Haven’t done enough. Haven’t saved enough. You’re not going to retire early enough. You’re not fit enough. You’re not cooking well enough. Whatever it is.

Or the news: “The world is going to burn.”

And the glow of the phone, the glow of the screen, the glow of the television, the glow of the computer — can we limit that? Can we be wise with that? Can we acknowledge that it is a tool, yes, that is good, but it’s a tool that very easily begins to use us?

And so I would want to protect your attention and what you give your attention to.

I also think it’s important — if joy is being in the presence of someone glad to be with you — I grieve that often, as my children or my wife have been in my presence, they don’t experience my face turned toward them. They experience my face on my phone, or on the TV, or on the computer.

And there have been so many times where you’re trying to be attentive, but your full attention, your full presence, your glad presence is not with your child. It’s over here.

And so I don’t say that to produce guilt or more shame, but just to acknowledge and notice that to multiply joy is to be fully present to the God who is fully present to us, and to be present to our children, to our spouse, to one another.

To put it down.

So a couple of real practical things:

Scripture before phone.

The first thing in the morning — don’t be asking, “What’s my email? What’s the news feed?” Talk about anxiety from the first moment.

Why don’t we sit in the gaze of the One who is glad to be with us, who loves us, who is speaking truth into our life, who is removing shame and guilt and all that?

Let’s start there.

And then this is a tough one: no phone while waiting.

No phone while waiting.

You’re in line at the grocery store, at a traffic light, during a commercial. Just pay attention to how many times you pick up your phone.

What if, while waiting in line, at that traffic light, wherever — in line for fast food, whatever it is — you were just present?

You sort of look up.

There might be some people around. There might be some children looking at you. “Daddy.” There might be a person there.

There might be a God sitting in the passenger seat, wanting to communicate His love and His joy.

So let’s be aware of the things that produce shame.

And related to that, I think our phone is one thing.

So let’s bring this full circle as we prepare for the table here. I’ll invite TJ up.

Let’s go back to where we started with Brandi.

Brandi wasn’t happy. Life isn’t easy for her. Her circumstances are hard. And yet joy is present.

Not because her circumstances are changing, not because it’s rooted in something circumstantial, but because it is rooted in something that circumstances can’t touch.

It’s the presence of God. It’s the presence of people that love her, her church. It’s the promises of God that all things will be made right.

Revelation 21: every tear will be wiped away from our eyes.

And I love it — Scripture ends where it begins.

Did you notice that? Scripture is a little different at the end. There are some important differences. But at the beginning, He’s walking in the garden, full glad presence.

And in Revelation, the hope is actually not that we escape this earth. It’s that God dwells — He comes down to dwell.

“The dwelling of God is with men,” with humans, with people, with creation.

We see God abiding with us, and that we experience the gladness of being in God’s presence with one another.

So that’s the promise of God.

His presence is where joy is found. His promises are where joy holds firm.

And we get to share that with other people.