getting your joy back

Mark 4:18-20
18Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; 19but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. 20Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown."

So the question still remains, in today’s world, how do we find joy? I think the better question is how do we get our joy back? First we need to really look at what we are trying to find. Webster dictionary defines joy as: ‘1 a: the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires.’ So joy is something we have to work for? No! The joy is ours from the day we are born. Joy is something we have to work to keep!

If we want to have a feeling of well being, success, and we want our desires filled, then we have to look at what kind of soil we are planted in. Too many of us are seeds that are trying to grow among thorns! We bought in to the lie, that only we can give ourselves joy. We believe that if we work hard enough, and buy enough things at some point we will be happy. We believe that if we can just get to the top of that corp. ladder, if we can just get that new car, or big house, then finally we will be full of Joy.

We want the crop that produces a hundred times what is sown, but we will never produce it while we reside among the thorns. The good news is that we are more than just seeds, we are Children of God. Members of the highest family through our brotherhood with Christ. If we find ourselves among thorns, we can move ourselves to fertile soil.

To get our joy back the first thing we need to do is to get right with God. We have to quit believing the lies of the natural world, and start turning to the Lord first. The cars, the house, the promotion….all of them will leave us empty inside after a very short time. They are all nothing more than fluff….extras….things to be enjoyed, but we should not waste our time chasing them. All of them will fade…all of them can be taken away as quickly as they are attained. Our comfort should be viewed as a gift form God.

When you walk outside, and feel the rays of sun warm your body; are you thankful for the sun rays? Of course not, you are thankful that the sun is there, the rays are the byproduct. At some point the sun will move form us, and the warmth will be gone. This should be our view of material things that bring us temporary joy, they are not the gift, they are the byproduct. When we recognize the Lord for our success…when we give him the glory and praise, then we start to feel that true joy.

When we wake up in the morning, before we pour that fist cup of coffee, before we even get out of bed…..we already have everything we need. Everything else that comes to us during the day is nothing more than fluff. The Lord protects us; he provides for us, he sustains us. When we fill our hearts with the Lord, then we receiver the joy that the Lord has to offer. When we give him the thanks and praise, then we start to understand that He is the cornerstone of our joy, upon him anything can be built for it will be built in his honor. When we try to build without the Lord as our foundation we will always be met with ruin, for nothing in this world remains.
As John Piper says “go hard after God” find your Joy in the Lord, and all that He wants to extend. When we recognize that the Lord is all we need for true, everlasting, all encompassing, heart-overflowing, I want to share it with everyone joy, we will all find ourselves in fertile soil, and our crops will be more abundant than ever. It is not a matter of what car we have in the driveway, it a matter of what we have parked in our hearts. Start searching for joy in the Lord, the rest is just fluff!

Peace,
Rev. Thetford