Well, man, it's good to be with you guys this morning, wherever you are tuning in. And we're thrilled that you're hanging out with us. Uh, if you don't know me, my name's Gray, and like Craig said, I get to hang out at the Hunt Club. And we are continuing our series, uh, about Christmas and looking at the broad themes or the four big themes of Advent. And so last week Craig talked about hope and uh, this week we're gonna talk about Joy.

But before we get there, I need to, and on all of our campuses, I need you guys to participate. Um, I wanna get a feel for the room and how you relate to Christmas. Okay? So this is crowd participation. Alright?

Um, so just in general, just a few questions. How many of you like really, really enjoy decorating for Christmas? Yeah, it's not even half the room. I feel you. Yeah, I don't know if that's like on the other campuses, but here we're not feeling the decorating.

Alright, so that's good. That's fine. Thank you for being honest. Um, uh, let, let's, that's broad now. Now let's get real, you know, kind of narrow our focus a little bit.

Christmas trees. Christmas trees is thing, is something that, that folks, you know, they, they feel really strong about. Okay, how many of you are alike? It has to be a real tree no matter what. You are a real tree hardliner.

Yes. Yes. You like buying dead things. Yeah, it's, but it's real. Well, it's real dead.

Uh, true story. We, like, I, I can't get past that. We finally, my family, uh, my wife finally gave in to, to my bad attitude and my son's bad attitude. And we went to an artificial tree, uh, years ago, but there was a time when she just left us and went and picked out the tree. 'Cause we spoiled all the fun.

And, and she came back and she had the tree and she got it set up. But I wanna say she got a lot of the lights on it. And then she's like, great, this tree is dead. And I was like, baby, that's what I've been trying to tell you for a decade. Like, you're buying a dead tree.

She's like, no, no. Like the, it's, it's already fallen off. The, the, the, you know, the things are, whatever you call it, uh, they're already falling off. Like, it's, it is. And I was, I was like, baby, yes, I like, and she said, uh, I'm taking it back.

I said, well, I'll have no part of that. Like, I'm not taking a dead tree back to get another dead tree. And she took it back and they gave her another one. Um, it was dead too. Um, but, but, but maybe, you know, you're, you're a tree person.

What about, what about lights? Anybody? You're like all about the lights. Yeah. A few of you.

Anybody, anybody ever try to, or you, you're, you're like Clark Griswold, like, you want to go full tilt? Uh, or what about the, I left this one out. I'll come back to the lights. And this is where we live. You're just the yard inflatable person in your neighborhood.

You just keep adding. There's no theme. I mean, you got the nativity theme and then you got the Grinch over here and a Yeti over here. And you know, people are like, what? Like, what, where did, when did Jesus come?

Was it the Ice Age? Like what, you know, um, that, that's our yard. You know, we've got a Yeti, we've got, uh, a Boston Terrier. There's a Nutcracker, there's nothing that connects any of that, right? Uh, except that it is, you know, Christmas themed.

But, but the lights, the lights are the thing that, that for me at Christmas, that that really I connect with and, and, and I connect with it. And not to be all super spiritual and pastor, but I connect with it because I love the imagery. And I, and I'm a visual person. I love the imagery of, of Jesus being light. You know, in, in John's Gospel, when he's writing down his account of his time with Jesus, John doesn't give us a, a typical Christmas story.

He, he, he kind of hits it from a, a different angle. And he says this, he says, in him was life. He says in him was life, and that life was the life of mankind. Then he makes this statement, the light shines in the darkness and then listen to this. And the darkness has not overcome it.

Like Craig talked last week about hope, that's one of the most hopeful, you know, verses in the Bible. That, that the light has come, the light of mankind who brings life and, and the darkness has not overcome. It will not overcome it. There will be a time when there will be no, no pain and no tears like that. That is an incredible picture.

But then I begin to think, you know, practically about light, and think about light again practically in your life, you know, light gives us life. Now, you, you may not know this and and maybe you can share this with somebody in your family if they need it, but, but the sunlight that we receive, it causes our brain to release something called serotonin. And serotonin. What is, what helps you get into a, a good mood? Like we, we need that light physically.

So some of you probably need to go home and tell somebody you need some sun. Like, I dunno, that's the kind way of saying, you know, fix your attitude. Um, but, but, but we need that. Then. If you think about the sunlight that provides warmth to our, our bodies and how we, we have to have that you, you remove the sun and we're, and, and we're dead.

Like light gives life. And, and then you, you take that and look at the parallel in our spiritual life. And that's exactly what Jesus said. He says, I'm the way, the truth and the life. Like nobody, nobody gets to this eternal life except through me.

In John 10 10, he says, I've come that you may have life and have it abundantly. And that abundantly is not about, uh, an abundance of trinkets and toys and, you know, stuff or money. It's about purpose and significance, fulfillment. And so Jesus gives us not only eternal life, but he also gives us a purposeful life here. Lemme tell you what else light does.

So it gives us life to our physical bodies. Again, practically thinking, speaking, uh, light also reveals truth. Have you ever play a little game? Have you ever got up in the middle of the night and someone moved a piece of furniture, left some legos out, left their high heels out, and you stepped on it or stumped your toe? Oh yeah.

And, and in that moment, man, you just praised God, didn't you? Yes, thank you Lord. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But had the lights been on, it would revealed the, it would've revealed the truth of, of what's in the room. This, the, the most significant, recently, the most significant, you know, interaction I've had.

Like, that was actually a year and a half ago. I was at the Hunt Club, okay? And, and it was, it was late. I was up there, I was, I was trying to get out in a hurry and, and I, I flicked the lights off and it, you know, everything was like the last light. And I, and I turned to go.

And I forget that there's a coffee table there, and, and it just, it hits me right above the knee where those tendons are. And then, and it just took me down. And, and you know, here's the, here's the wonderful thing on all of our campuses is we have cameras. And so when the pain was over, I was like, I gotta watch this back. And, and, and so I, I thought I would let you guys enjoy my misery.

Now let me tell you before you see this, hang on, before you see this, this is what you gotta watch for. I turn the light off and the camera gets kind of squirrely just for a second because it's adjusting to the darkness. And then that second is when I hit it. So you listen for the clip of the light, you listen for the thud of my knee, and then you listen for my moan, okay? Alright, here we go.

Watch this. I'm drinking a diet coke, which I did not spill, guys. I laid there a while. Uh, at one point, I I, my phone was in my pocket and you could see me. I was like, I need to call my wife.

Um, But when we try to do life outside of God's truth, that reveals the reality. That's what my life looks like. I'm stumbling and fumbling and making a mess of, of everything. Like light reveals truth. And then the third thing I think about with light, um, and where we're kind of gonna hang out this morning is light.

Light brings joy. Light gives joy. Think about the Christmas lights. And listen, you may be a tough man and all, you know, but, but when you see those first Christmas lights, there's a little spark in your heart. It does something.

Or you see your kids see the Christmas lights, you know, or I think about, I mentioned, uh, the Griswolds earlier when the lights finally, if you know, the movie I grew up watching that we didn't watch, like it's a wonderful Life. We watched Christmas vacation and, uh, and, and, and he finally connects it. You remember the look on his face? Oh man, he was so, he was so thrilled. That's what light does.

Light, light brings joy, light brings happiness. There he is, man. He's so thrilled. Light brings happiness. But Jesus does something even deeper.

See if you know the Christmas story, the Christmas narrative, the birth of Jesus. And, and Luke chapter two, the shepherds are out in, in the fields. And and I, this, this is probably not biblically accurate, but the, the shepherds were, you know, they were kind of, you know, roughnecks and they lived out in a way. And, and for whatever reason, I just had this image of, of whatever the, the thing you did to get high back then, that's probably what the shepherds did. And, uh, and, and I think that because just stay with me.

Because, because, you know, the, I could just, this whole dialogue with the angel showing up and like, Hey, man, what, you know what those are some bad fruit, you know? And because the angel goes, he says, Hey, don't, don't, don't be afraid. And this is what then, then he says this, he says, I bring you good news that causes, and he uses this phrase, great joy for all people, great joy. It literally translates mega joy. Like, it, it is not just that you get to see Christmas lights and, and, and you feel excited about, there, there, there's, there's something deeper back during our taste and see series Blake unpack joy for us.

And, and he gave us a great definition. He said, it's the, the awareness of God's, of God's favor or grace and favor, own and in our lives, like own our lives. And I think about that in, in accepting that favor and that grace for the first time, but then in our lives that it's continuous. That is it's day to day as we, as we need it. And this grace is, is a feeling.

And I'm, I'm sorry, this joy is a feeling. This great joy, no doubt is a feeling. But, and I, and I hate to put Boston in your mind, but it is also more than a feeling. It is. That's a band that sings that song.

It's also deeper than a feeling. Listen, listen to this, uh, by Timothy Keller. I love this imagery. Again, I I'm a visual person. He says, the joy that Christmas brings, the assurance of God's love and care is like a subterranean river of joy that will reinvigorate you no matter the circumstances.

So this, this great joy is not that we don't feel sorrow. It's not that we don't feel pain. I mean, you guys know the holiday season, we talk about this a lot, the hunt club, that, that, you know, whatever you're going through in the holidays, you know, whatever you're feeling the holidays exaggerated, man, if you're feeling good or great, man, it's amazing. But man, if you're struggling, it is, is it is far more difficult. So it is not that we we do away with those emotions.

It's that in the midst of that, there is a deep river of great joy that reinvigorates us that never runs dry. Now listen, I don't know why you're here this morning. I mean, on, on any of our campuses don't care. I don't know why, what got you to church this morning? I don't know your experience with church, with other Christians.

Maybe you've been hurt, but I'm gonna guess that you would want that kind of joy in your life, a great joy that you have in spite of the circumstances, a great joy that is not hindered by your circumstances. And here is the reality. And if I would say the, the tension this morning, the angel said, I bring you good news. That causes great joy for all people. Great joy is available to all people.

All people don't experience great joy. It's just a reality. Let me ask you this. You guys know, you can just nod your head. You guys know what a killjoy is or maybe a, a better way to ask that.

Do you know a killjoy? So killjoy is, is somebody who is like Debbie downer, like wah, wah, wah. Like he's always, it doesn't matter what's going on. If there's, if there's 1% that is negative, that's all they see. And, and, and if that's, and I need, I need to not say that.

And, but, but, and, and they think they're doing a service to us. All right? You know, and I, I think in our lives when we, when we look for this great joy, we look for the things that keep it or keep us from experiencing it. We, we, we look for them outside of us. It's this situation.

It's this circumstance. It's these people. And no doubt those people and that circumstance may cause grief and sorrow and sadness. But when we're talking about deep joy, there's, there's some things that keep us from that. And they are not external, but they are internal.

I grew up doing, um, kids, uh, or Christmas plays in a, in a small church. I don't know if you guys do that. Uh, Craig, can we please not ever start that here? Uh, um, but, you know, and everybody had a role in those, in those Christmas plays. You had Mary and Joseph, you know, um, you had the, the shepherds and the angels.

You know, we never, at my, our church, we never did live animals that we, you know, we put some of the kids, dressed them up like a donkey or a sheep or something, and, you know, um, but, but there was, there was everybody. But there was one role, one character. We never, we never cast. And, and I think to be honest, particularly in reference to joy, we have the most to learn from this person in his king Herod, like King Herod was in the midst of the, the Christmas story. And he never experienced the great joy.

Great joy was available, but, but he never experienced it. If you have your bibles, once you turn to Matthew chapter two, we'll read a little bit about King Herod, and then I'm just gonna end with some joy killers in our life. Matthew chapter two says, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in Judea, there, uh, during the time of King Herod, magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, where's the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. Now, just real quick, magi that means wise men, wise men.

Here, here's what you need to know about them. Number one, they were not kings, okay? We three kings, we aren't like, that's, they, they weren't kings. Uh, um, and they also weren't at the birth. Okay?

So all our nativities are lies, okay? Um, now they came, I'm, they came to worship, you know, and, and I think that's what, that's the idea behind our nativity. We just wanna consolidate the whole thing. Hey, there's a party. And, um, but, but they weren't there at the birth.

So this is, this is a few, few years later, but they were, they were pagan astrologers. Like these were the people in the Old Testament that God set himself against. And, and, and they saw this starlight and they followed it. And, and they came to, to worship this, this king of the Jews. He says, we saw this star when, when it rose, and we came to worship him.

Verse three. Uh, when King Herod heard this, he was disturbed in all of Jerusalem with him. Now, let me tell you about King Herod, okay? There's so much. I I, I had to write it down.

It says, king Herod was disturbed in all of Jerusalem with him. All of Jerusalem was disturbed. Uh, because when King Herod was disturbed, you never know what you were gonna get. He was incredibly paranoid, though he was incredibly, um, you know, they did well when it came to politics and that side of things. But when it came to family and, and just, you know, his own personal life, man, he, he was a wreck.

He had, listen to this, he had 10 wives. Each of them, uh, gave him a son, a prince. So you can imagine that at, at Thanksgiving or Christmas, you got these 10 sons, they all wanna be the next one in line. And so because of that, it was always chaos. They were always fighting.

When I say fighting, like trying to kill each other, uh, they, they tried to poison each other at different times. Uh, Herod got so frustrated at one point that he, and this is, you can go back and Google all of this, okay? He actually killed three of his sons. Not only did he kill three of his sons, he killed his favorite wife, who was the mother of two of those sons, because he feared treason. He feared they were after his throne.

He killed his cousins, he killed his uncle. He killed a high priest at a pool party. Go back and Google it. Like anybody that threatened him, he eliminated. And so King Herod goes to the Jewish people and the teacher's like, Hey, these wise men came, and they're asking about this king of the Jews.

And Herod said that he was the king of the Jews. And he's like, you know, he acted all curious. He was trying to be sneaky, and, and he found out where he was supposed to be born. And so he calls the, the Magi back, says, then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search carefully for that child.

As soon as you find him report to me so that I too may go and worship him. That was not his plan. After they had heard the king, they went out on their way. And the star they had seen when it rose, went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. And when they saw the star, they were overjoyed.

And they go on in and they, they worship him. And, and again, I push you back to his, it's good news that causes great joy for all people. These people didn't even believe in the God of the Old Testament. And now they're here worshiping Jesus. King Herod, we pick back up in verse 16, when Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and in its vicinity who were two years old and under in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.

Now listen, Harry's got a lot going on. Alright, there, there, there's, there's a lot of bouncing around between his ears, but there's some things we can learn from Herod, because I think if you would ask Herod What robbed him of his joy, he would say, man, this little baby, I was minding my own business. These wise men show up and, and they tell me about this king of the Jews. I'm the king of the Jews. This, this thing outside of me is what is robbing my joy.

This thing outside of me is my kill joy. But when you read his account and then you, you kinda read about how he was outside of, of what we have in the scriptures, you realize, man, it, it wasn't the things outside of him, it was the things inside of him. And those same things can or maybe do reside in us. And the first one is pride. Pride kept Herod from experiencing great joy.

Pride. Pride is not just setting yourself against something. Pride is setting yourself above it. Pride says, I can do it. I don't need you.

I don't need your help. I don't need church. I don't need house church. I, I don't, I don't need, I don't need religion. And I would hit time out and be like, that's not what we're, that's not what we're offering, what we're, what we're pointing you to, But prices, I don't need any of that.

I can do it on my own. And hey, how about this? When I do mess up, I can handle the consequences. But this is what I know about you. And, and it is true about me.

Like I have fallen short of my own standards. I've set goals, and I've come, you know, terribly short of those goals. I've fallen short of other people's standards that they've set for my, for me. And, you know, hey, I, this is what I need out of you. And I've come up short.

If there is a God, you can rest assured I have fallen short of his standards. But pride says I don't need that. And the good news is to every one of these joy kills, there is an antidote. And the antidote is simply humility. It's simply coming to God and going, Hey man, I can't do this.

I can't make myself right with you. The next one for Herod was fear. Oh man, he was consumed with fear. What was this new baby going to cost me? What would I lose?

This is my kingdom. This is my territory. I've ruled over this. And now you're gonna come in here and tell me that you are the king of the Jews. I've got some folks coming from a far off land asking for the king of the Jews, and they're not talking about me.

He feared what it would cost him. And this may be for some of you, why you've never placed your faith in Christ is you fear what it will cost you. And it does. But the antidote to fear is trust. I'm gonna read you what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 16.

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it. But whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? Herod was worried about gaining all of Judea, and he forfeited his soul. He missed the great joy because he feared what he would lose.

And here he is, the economy that God operates on. And, and if we could ever understand this, it's a game changer. But it's what Jesus said, if you want to gain your life, you've got to lose it. Herod thought that it had to be, it had to be either the, the glory of Jesus or his joy and what he wanted. He didn't realize that had he pursued Jesus, he would've found a joy much deeper than he had ever experienced.

We will always be most satisfied, most fulfilled in life when, when he is most glorified, when we make much of him. And the things that it cost us don't hold a candle to what we gain. Herod was consumed with pride. He was eaten up with fear. And let me just, just kind of narrow the focus just for a second.

If you're not a Christ follower, I think those two man, they can keep you more than anything else from experiencing great joy. Third thing that was inside of Herod that can reside in us is envy. These wise guys show up and they're asking, where is the king of the Jews? And they can imagine Herod going, ain't nobody coming from me. I've been the king for a long time now.

Nobody's shown up asking me, you know where I am. And listen, if you're a Christ follower, although all three of these, although we can land ourselves in a place of pride, we can land ourselves in a place of fear but envy, it will rob us of joy every time. Because as long as we are looking at what God is doing for everybody else, we cannot see what he's done for us. As long as we are counting everyone else's blessings, we're gonna miss the blessings that God has given us. If I give you a bottom line this morning, it would be this, how you respond to the light with a capital L determines the existence of and the extent of your joy, the existence of is.

Do you have a relationship with Christ? Has, is the Holy Spirit residing in you? Is there even the opportunity for great joy to exist? Do you receive or reject the light? Is your pride pride blocking you from the light?

Is your, is your fear keeping you from the light? But then not only does it impact the existence of, but the extent of, and that's for us Christ followers, listen, we, we can't fabricate great joy. We cannot do it. It it is the work of the Holy Spirit in us. But we can do things that either cultivate or complicate the work of the Holy Spirit And maybe some things that you've been doing that are just making it complicated for you to experience great joy.

And you need to begin placing yourself in situations and circumstances and making decisions that cultivate that growth In you. Man, How we respond to Christmas, how we respond to the light, how we respond to Jesus determines the existence of, and the extent of the joy in our lives. We want that For you. We want you to experience the good news that causes great joy. Let me pray for us.

Father God, we thank you that you create a way for us to experience not just happiness or giddiness or, but, but, but God, something deep inside that come hell or high water continues to flow through our soul. Not at the surface level, but at, at the, at the deepest part of us. And God, I prayed for the person in the room and on our campuses who's never placed their faith in your son Jesus. And because of that, not only are they missing salvation, they're, they're missing the great joy that comes with it. God, don't let their pride or their fear keep them from you.

And God, for us as believers, God help us to do the things that we can to cultivate the growth of that great joy in our hearts. And we pray these things in your perfect son's name. Amen.