John 15:9-11 “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. 10 When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. 11 I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!”
In a world scarred by sin and shadowed in sorrow, where many groan under the weight of grief, drowning in despair and disappointment, we desperately need genuine joy. God’s desire has always been for His children to experience great joy in this life, that is why He sent His Son. We say we want what He offers, yet God and man have differing ideas about how this is going to be accomplished. Joy is what the human heart really hungers for but rather than satisfying the hunger with the Godly gift of joy, humanity by and large has chosen to chase happiness. It’s about what we can experience and get out of the deal. It’s a John 6 kind of religion, following Jesus for food, we are happy as long as our bellies are being filled, but forsaken at the first hint of hardship. Today we have become derailed by what I call the doctrine of deserving, where we are taught that we deserve to be happy. A permeating philosophy that’s not just contaminating the culture but controlling the church, and because what we believe effects how we behave this deserving belief bleeds over into demanding behavior. Interestingly the word happy comes from the root word “hap” which literally means chance. This is the root of several other words, happen, hapless, and even haphazard. Happiness depends upon what happens to you, based on chance and circumstance. But Christianity is not about circumstantial happiness that comes from chasing chance it’s about change that comes from chasing Christ. Preaching is not a popularity contest it’s a privileged, please don’t water down the Word, the world deserves truth not trash. It’s time to tell the truth that Jesus gave His life so we could have life, He didn’t come so we could be happy, He came so we could be holy. Happiness is at best a byproduct of holiness, what concerns me is we have a whole culture chasing the left overs instead of the Lord. We are called to make followers of Christ not feelers of comfort. The Bible mentions “joy” or “rejoicing” 330 times. But it only mentions “happiness” 26 times. In John 15 we see Jesus the night before the crucifixion in the upper room with His disciples. Soon He will be going to Gethsemane where He will wrestle in prayer over His coming persecution. Soon He will be arrested, tried and convicted of crimes He never committed. Soon He will be spat on, slapped, and scorned, soon He will suffer humiliation and hatred. He will be mocked and murdered, nailed to the cross of crucifixion. Jesus fully conscious of His current circumstances and what is to come said: “I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow” This is not what the culture would call a journey of joy, but here we see a significant difference between joy and happiness. Where happiness is based on circumstances, joy is based on Jesus. Unlike happiness that is based on fleeting feelings that ebb and flow on the currents of circumstance and fizzle out at the first turn of the tide, Jesus’ joy is full to overflowing. Jesus joy is not caned and contained by our circumstances, difficulty does not dam our joy, and when trials test and situations squeeze the joy of Jesus should run out. Many Christians today reveal a foggy faith, where you can’t see God for the gloom. Instead of living a life of belief and blessing its burden and bondage. Where is the joy of Jesus today? When situations squeeze us where is the joy juice that should run out, overflowing and overtaking our lives? We act like living for the Lord is a pain instead of a privilege, it’s time for the church to stop making Christianity a chore. In its pursuit of happiness through pleasure the church has crashed into the culture, like a derailed train we have left the tracks of truth. We have a faith that frets instead of following. It seems that the only religious works that are of value are those which are somber, serious and sullen. Today there are those that only appear to be joyful when they are depressed. This is unbiblical behavior, and no I am not suggesting that we be unrealistic about life’s troubles or silly in the face of suffering. But have you listened to the words of Jesus: “As the Father loves me, so I love you.” Could there be three more beautiful words coming from the mouth of God? “I love you.” These are more than just words mouthed by Jesus, these are words that moved Jesus to the cross. Don’t miss the magnitude of his love: “as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” For the Son to love sinners at all overwhelms the imagination, its incomprehensible. We should be content to have a God that tolerates us and yet He treasures us. The magnitude is found in the measure of Christ’s love; He loves us as the Father loves Him, with a divine affection, unrestrained, holding nothing back. First Jesus declares his love, second, he describes his love and third, he demands that we remain under the assurance and influence of his love. On the last night of His life, facing the cross, Jesus chose to talk about joy. The writer of Hebrews looking back at this writes these words in Hebrews 12:2; “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross and scorned its shame.” You may ask “How can there be any joy in a cross?” but first we need to ask the question, “How can we experience that kind of joy?” because it is this answer that answers the first. So how can we experience this kind of joy? First we need to respond and rely on His relationship. In John 15:5-6 Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire & burned.” Believers are branches that bear fruit only when they are attached to Jesus the vine. This is where the joy begins, when we have accepted and are attached to the Almighty. Joy is an evidence of the presence of God in our life. If God is in your life, if you are filled with the Spirit of God, then the fruit of the Spirit, joy, will be obvious and overflow. Is your joy an overflowing river or has it been reduced to a trickle? Are you doing life with the Lord or are you a loner? Are you living for the Savior or are you self-sufficient? First we need to be secured to the Savior and second, we need to give ourselves in service for others. One of the biggest problems in our world today is that we have become so self-centered that we no longer experience the joy of serving others. We were saved to serve not be selfish. How can there be any joy in a cross? Why did the writer of Hebrews call the cross an object of joy for Jesus, because Jesus didn’t do it for Himself, He did it for us. Have you lost the joy of service, has your joy become dulled by duty? The joy of Jesus cannot be understood unless one is willing to follow the Lord fully, and serve the Savior sacrificially. Joy is only found in Jesus you can’t let people, places, possessions, or position try to be the source of your joy, only the person of Jesus. So today are you chasing chance or Christ, are you relying on luck or the Lord?
Author Archives: Giles
Moments in a Monastery – Part 9
COMPLINE
Compline the last worship service completes the circle of the day, calling the monastic community to come and examine their conscience before Christ. As darkness descends we become more acutely aware of our Saviors sufferings in light of our sin. As we are brought face to face with failings of the day we also see more clearly the forgiveness of the Father. This is a time to evaluate the health of the heart, a time of confession as we come before Christ. A time to admit our faults instead of faking and allow His forgiveness to flood over our failures. It is in the last rays of light that we are reminded of the resurrecting power of redemption. Just as we start the day focusing on the Father so we end it reflecting on His redemptive call to relationship. Compline as completion is in some ways an oxymoron for compline may signal the completion of the day but is any day ever really complete? So often in our culture the completion of the day just means we made it to its end, its over and tomorrow we will get up to continue what was not completed this day! This in many ways will be the case with our lives, there will probably be things left undone, lists still unchecked. Which makes me wonder, what does a completed life look like? Compline with its call to completion causes us to look back, to reflect on the road traveled, and the time spent sojourning. A time to reflect on what is really important, for we will live for eternity but our earthly time is temporary. Compline as the completing of the day and its coming darkness also reminds us of death and the limits to life. You see we love the idea of and end to the day, but for many just like the darkness we fear the end to this life. Yet Jesus at His compline of completion turned to the disciples and in John 14:1-3 said “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.” Jesus was describing the life to come and the twin realities of heaven, residence and relationship, a place to be and a person to be with. Isn’t this the great cry of our culture, the searching of every soul, wanting to belong and be loved. May be a complete life is not one chocked full with accomplishments and accolades but one completely content with Christ. A life lived not striving for success but striving for the Savior, a life enriched by the reality that He is enough. Jesus then went on to pray to the Father in John 17:3 saying “this is the way to have eternal life to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth.” According to Jesus eternal life has more to do with relation than duration. Its not about the length of life but The Lord of your life. Jesus was reminding His disciples of the true depth to life, that we are not really living until we are living life with The Lord. That truth is always more important than time, that we should not fear the future because as believers it always involves hope in a heavenly home. That because of Christ’s work are blessed with being and belonging. What if we were willing to wade out into the deep water, to surrender our lives to the Savior in spite of the scary currents of servanthood. What if we stopped paddling around in the shallow pool of selfishness? Isn’t it time to stop living living lives that are less than, to stop settling for second and embrace His best? How many today are drowning in the shallow pool of selfish desire, seduced into Satan’s destructive plan instead of serving the Savior. Jesus said that eternal life is knowing God, doing life with The Lord of light, responding to His relational invitation, to return to our first love. For it is in knowing God that we come to see who we really are and who He called us to be. Relationships are like mirrors, the more we relate the more they reflect, the more we seek the more we see. The more we live in relationship with The Lord, the more we live with the reflection of who we really are. The more we see who we really are in the reflection of relationship, the more we see who we are to be and the change that needs to take place. A complete life is a changed life, one that is converted and conformed to Christ, as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:51 “we will all be changed” But this is not just a change of address, but a change in actions. More than just a move from earth to eternity but truth that transforms from our skin to our soul. Today I wonder if the church by and large hasn’t just settled, waiting for a location change instead of life change. This is more than just believing in the beep from the backup of a celestial moving company but belief in Christ who conforms and changes us. I need more than just an address change, I need an attitude change, where my belief affects behavior. Have we given into the temptation to pray for a trouble free life instead of a transformed life? In Psalm 27 David understood that the antidote to difficulty and danger was more than just the removal of problems, it was the presence of Christ. He describes in detail the dangers he faced: “When evil people come to devour me, when my enemies and foes attack me, they will stumble and fall. Though a mighty army surrounds me, my heart will not be afraid. Even if I am attacked, I will remain confident.” In the midst of danger David asks for one thing, not for the removal of his problems but to be in the present of Jesus: “The one thing I ask of the LORD — the thing I seek most— is to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, delighting in the LORD’s perfections and meditating in his Temple.” Compline at the end causes us to come back to the beginning, Christ is the completion of the circle. David states at the beginning of Psalm 27 “The LORD is my light and my salvation— so why should I be afraid? Just as the day starts and sets with the sun so ours should with the Savior. As we come to the closing of the day we come ready to repent, conscious of what needs to be confess before Christ. This is a time of not just looking back at what has been but longing forward to what will be. These moments in the Monastery sitting still with the Savior have been both rewarding and renewing. In the silence when everything is stripped away and we simply come we find Christ and that is enough, a complete life is a life learning to live content only in Christ.
Moments in the life of a Pastor 