Skip to content The Advent of Joy | The Coming King with Dusty Davis – Audio Only Dec 18 · 28 min ...more
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0:00 Well, Merry Christmas, and welcome back for our final session, week 4, in our Advent series, The Coming King. Christmas is almost here. Now remember, Advent just means0:12 the arrival of a notable person. And we're getting ready to celebrate the arrival of the most notable person. We are counting down the days to the arrival of King Jesus. And we0:24 are so excited. And over the past few weeks, we've already seen that through his birth, Jesus Christ has brought peace to us. Remember, he actually0:36 created peace for us. He fought for it. He won it by defeating our enemy, by overturning the grave, sin, and death. He freed us. We now have peace with0:47 God and peace with 1 another. But Christ didn't just bring us peace. We we celebrate at Christmas time that Christ brought us hope the day that he entered humanity. And I'm not talking about wishful0:59 thinking. I'm not talking about the the dream that sometime maybe things will be better. No. No. Jesus brought us a real hope, a certainty, a hope strong enough to build our lives1:10 upon. And last session, we saw that love was birthed the day that Christ entered humanity, a love that only he can bring, not what we as fallen people have1:22 reduced love to. No. No. Jesus modeled true love, which was sacrifice. Remember, perfect love, which does, doesn't just feel. A love that moves, that seeks us out, and offers itself up.1:34 And today, we're going to unpack the reality that Jesus Christ brings us joy. Now, started almost every 1 of these sessions together by rightly defining, the advent word that we're going to study1:46 each week. And it's by design. It's not coincidence. Because words matter. Our enemy knows it. That's why the enemy always seeks to create confusion about what the word of God says. You1:58 remember in the garden? Right? You remember the snake showing up? Did God really say? Right from the beginning, enemy has sought to confuse us about the intentions of our God.2:09 Confuse and and twist the words of God that he's spoken to us. And so today, just like in every other study we've had so far together, we wanna get God's mind and God's heart on joy. What does the Bible2:21 say when it talks about joy? We've gotta rightly define joy because our human tendency is to shortchange joy and just settle for happiness. Just like2:33 culture reduced hope to be wishful thinking and reduced love to just a feeling, cultures also wrongly associated joy with happiness. But the 2 are actually very2:45 different. I'm not just playing word games with you here today. Whenever scripture talks about joy, it's not referring to a good feeling or a happy moment. Joy is so much bigger.2:57 Biblical joy, kara in the original Greek, it describes an extreme happiness. It's undeterred. It can't be swayed by life's circumstances.3:09 Because true joy isn't circumstantial. Doesn't come from our circumstances in life. True joy comes from God alone. Because true joy is actually the3:21 eager anticipation, the expectation, the certainty surrounding all of the wonderful things that God has already done and all of the wonderful things that God is going to do in the future.3:32 So joy doesn't have anything to do with my life circumstances. And that's why joy can never be as small or as fleeting as as happiness. And you know why?3:44 Because sometimes joy shows up with tears. Joy can survive in pain. Joy can be found in the waiting. Joy can be found in the3:56 wanting and the longing and the not yet. Joy can survive all of life's struggles. It can thrive in that in between, the tension in the now and the not yet. You and I can experience real joy even when life is4:07 difficult. So joy can never just be an emotion, you know, that everything's awesome. Happiness is always anchored in a moment, in an experience. Joy, on the other hand,4:20 is rooted in the person of Jesus. And so it can transcend our life's circumstances. Because our joy, just like our God, is eternal. Joy can last.4:32 Happiness, on the other hand, is always going to evaporate when our circumstances change. Joy is not some emotion that comes to us externally through experience.4:44 No, no, it's this deep internal sense and strength and trust that we have as followers of Jesus. It's something we can hold onto. It's something that we can find in a4:56 deep contentment or an unshakable confidence. But happiness is literally the opposite. It's based on happenstance. So it's always fleeting, it's always5:08 fickle, it's always momentary. It can't be trusted. We can't build our life on it. But we can build our lives upon the joy that Jesus brings. But how5:20 can we have joy when things are hard? I mean, how can we find real joy in the middle of suffering? Well, I wanna take us back to that very first Christmas. I want to learn a5:31 couple of things from 1 of the key players in the nativity scene. I want to take a look at Mary in our session today. I mean, what a unique calling she had. To get to birth and5:43 raise and care for the Lord Jesus as her own beloved child? It's incredible. Now, I mean, discipline would have been pretty easy. Right? Jesus didn't require any. I don't think it would have been, it would have been a5:55 little bit hard, I think, though, to stay quiet, you know, if other moms were bragging about how awesome their their sons were, you're sitting there thinking, I mean, my son is God's son. But seriously, though, I can't6:05 imagine the joy of raising Jesus, but I can't even imagine the pain of watching my own son be nailed to a cross. Mary's life was a unique blessing and an6:17 incredibly difficult calling. And when we consider Mary and the joy that she would ultimately experience, I think we can sometimes forget the reality of that first Christmas. I mean,6:29 nativity scenes are always glowing and beautiful and they're serene, they're calm. Heck, I mean, mangers don't even smell like animals, which they were homes for pigs and cows. But with6:40 the right mindset, I think we can learn some really important things from Mary. Some things that I pray are gonna encourage you and encourage me this Christmas wherever we find ourselves. Because6:52 Mary had a lot of reasons to enter that first Christmas without any joy at all. Mary lived in a culture that was built on the strictest observance of the law.7:05 This is a culture completely intolerant of public sins. The fact that Mary was pregnant during her betrothal period means that she could have been killed. Stoned,7:16 actually. I mean, can you imagine the fear that would have consumed her heart? Always looking over her shoulder fearfully wondering, is today the day that the mob's gonna show up at my door carrying rocks?7:29 Guys, Joy would have had a hard time flourishing in a scene like that. Now beyond fearing for her life and the life of her unborn child, her reputation, her standing in the community, those have been completely shot.7:41 I'm guessing most people at the time, at least, didn't really buy the whole I'm having God's son immaculate conception story. Joseph, I imagine, was struggling mightily too.7:53 Oh, by the way, they were completely broke. She was all alone, pregnant, traveling on a donkey. Oh, and by the way, she was a teenager. Mary8:05 had a large pile of reasons for incredible concern rightfully. And based on all of these circumstances, she didn't have any reason to8:17 experience real joy. And yet we find in scripture in Luke chapter 1, Mary speaks out 1 of the most beautiful passages in all scripture, in my opinion. Actually, she sings8:28 it. And just the first couple of verses of the magnificent of Mary's song, Luke chapter 1 verses 46 through 49 sounds like this. Oh, how my soul praises the Lord.8:40 How my spirit rejoices in God, my savior, for he took notice of his lowly servant girl. And from now on, generations will call me blessed, for the mighty 1 is holy. He has8:52 done great things for me. Isn't that beautiful? While Mary was right in the middle of an incredible struggle, when uncertainty and fear and9:03 doubt, all of that, the pain that she was feeling could have easily overshadowed her heart and her mind, Mary chose to respond differently. Instead of choosing fear and worry and doubt, she9:15 chose to worship. It's a powerful reminder for us today. As the first step in choosing joy, really joy begins when we choose to worship9:27 Jesus. I'm not just talking about singing either. We do worship Christ through song. We do sing songs of worship. But worship is so much more than just singing.9:39 Very simply, worship is focus. Worship is focus. What what are we oriented towards? Right? What is it that we're considering? What9:51 are we focused on? What are we facing? What's in front of us? Mary had reason to focus on all of the things in her life that were going wrong. And if Mary's goal had been a happy life,10:03 then all of those circumstances were going to have to change because happiness can't thrive in those circumstances. But for joy to enter in, her circumstances didn't need to change. What needed to10:15 change was her perspective. Her focus. Now, didn't happen to her. Mary intentionally chose not to worry. She chose instead to worship,10:27 which means so can we. And I don't say this lightly. It actually makes me really sad when I hear people rushing people through pain, Trying to get them to just put on a10:39 happy face, brother, consider it pure joy. I bet Mary shed a bunch of tears that first Christmas. So this isn't an encouragement to not feel emotions, tough emotions, or to10:51 ignore the reality of your life. But choosing to worship, choosing to focus my eyes on Jesus means that just like Mary, I can experience joy even through my11:02 tears, even while I'm still weeping. But it wasn't Mary's tears that held her heart. Mary focused on her father in heaven,11:14 not her circumstances. She didn't find hope waiting for some resolution. She found hope in the fact that God saw her. That's where Mary's hope came from, that he took notice11:26 of me. If your circumstances feel overwhelming this Christmas, if doubt or anxiety or loss, if worry or fear are closing11:37 in and starting to suffocate you, my simple encouragement is this, choose to worship. Maybe even before you feel like it. Choose to believe that God is11:48 worthy. Shift your focus of him knowing that he sees you. I'm not saying ignoring your reality. I'm not saying turning off your feelings. I'm talking about12:00 intentionally focusing on the 1 who is already 1, the 1 who sees you, who knows you, the 1 who sees every tear.12:12 How beautiful is this verse? Psalm chapter 56 verse 8 says, you keep track of all my sorrows. You've collected my tears in your bottle. You've recorded each 1 in your book. Know that Jesus Christ12:24 is close to you in your suffering. God is near in your pain because our God knows what it's like to break. Our high priest knows what it's like12:35 to suffer. Our God knows what it's like to be betrayed, insulted, wrongly accused, rejected by the very ones you came to save. Jesus knows what it's like to ask God for relief, to12:47 ask for another way, to beg for it, but yet to choose to trust and submit himself. Jesus knows what it's like to be abandoned, betrayed by his best friends, tortured. He even tasted death so that12:59 you and I would never have to. And so when we choose to worship, we're choosing to shift our focus onto Jesus Christ and off of our circumstances.13:12 Because that's when joy can start to grow. Supernatural joy. Not feelings of happiness, not a wax smile. I'm talking about a deep sense of joy.13:23 I love that Mary chose to worship in the middle of her circumstances, before they had changed. Nothing had changed. She wasn't celebrating on the other side of the13:35 resolution of all these things. She maybe had just finished crying. She might have sang that from her knees, completely eyes just cried out. But remember,13:47 weeping can endure for the night, but joy, joy comes in the morning. Joy comes to us in the middle of our suffering. And so if we find ourselves lacking joy this Christmas, I wanna encourage13:58 you. Make room in your heart for Jesus. Make space in your life to worship him. Every Christmas we sing joy to the world. And in joy to the world, there's a line14:10 that says, let every heart prepare him room. Just a way of saying, get your heart ready. For Jesus, prepare, decide14:22 intentionally, choose, lean in. Because it's only then that we can experience Christ and the joy that he wants to bring us at Christmas. And so this Christmas, can we all intentionally14:34 shift our focus back to Jesus? Let's go back to a childlike faith. Now, childlike, not childish. There's a difference.14:46 Because a childlike faith is beautiful. When you were a kid, Christmas was magical. And I'm not just talking about the lights, but I mean, opening a gift. When someone gave you a gift, it was amazing. It was an14:57 experience that filled you with awe and wonder and gratitude. That's childlike faith. Childlike faith comes to God and receives joy and opens it and just stands in awe of15:09 everything Jesus has done already. This a heart, a childlike heart is a heart that wonders at the beauty of his love, considers it overwhelmed by it. That's childlike. Now childish faith is15:21 very different. Childish faith removes awe, removes wonder, and replaces it with a wish list. Right? We trade awe with expectation.15:33 We pride a hard heart. It melts away all the wonder. It leaves us with a heart that's kinda judging the value of the gift. Or maybe in the waiting, childish faith, doubts that the giver's even gonna come through.15:45 Guys, we gotta choose wonder. Just like we have to choose to worship. Worry? Worry is gonna come naturally. You don't have to decide to worry. You don't have to choose it.15:58 We have to choose to worship. Choose to make Christ the source of our joy, just like Mary did, her beautiful example that first Christmas. We can't manufacture some hope that creates16:09 joy, guys. We can't earn it. We can't manifest it. Remember, this isn't having some unrealistic, generalized positive mindset that's gonna make everything okay. Nor is this lulling16:21 yourself into some trance like state where I don't feel, I don't deal, I just I just move forward. This is shifting our focus off of ourselves, off of our own situations,16:34 and on to Jesus. Off of ourselves. Christmas is a hard time to choose humility. Right? Everything's about us. What do you want for Christmas? What are you doing for Christmas? What parties are you attending? Right?16:45 Getting my eyes off of myself at Christmas time is hard. But there's a humility that's required if I'm going to receive what God has for me. And it's bigger than just not thinking about what presence I want. It's16:56 reminding myself that Christ did for me what I can't do for myself. I can't save myself. And once saved, I can't sanctify myself. And I can't create joy in my heart. I can't create peace and hope in my heart. There's a17:08 hope and a joy that only Christ brings, and my pride's gonna keep me from that. There's a pride that says that I can earn God's joy, or there's a pride that says I better perform enough in order to get God's joy, and I17:20 don't wanna out you see, the focus is on myself either way, in error. They're overly emphasizing our ability to earn or or to keep or to create joy. That's not true joy.17:32 In humility, recognize Christ did for me what I could never have done for myself. And then and then my joy is restored to me on the other side of that, even after I blow it. Right? When17:44 David sinned with Bathsheba, he prayed. He said, God, can you restore my joy? Restore to me the joy of your salvation and make me willing to obey you.17:56 That's Psalms chapter 51 verse 12. David was asking God saying, take me back to the beginning. I've made a mess of stuff. Take me back, Lord. Remind me of the salvation that you offered to me.18:07 The joy that the sin that I've chosen is just stolen from me. If you find yourself lacking joy this Christmas, I encourage you, go back to your moment of salvation.18:19 Revisit where you were and who you were when Christ first came to you, when he sought you out, when he searched for you, when he left the 99 to pursue you,18:32 when you were a long ways off and he ran to you. Remember where you were when God found you, when he washed you clean, when he saved you. And just allow the spirit to flood your heart with feelings of18:44 of thanksgiving and joy. The enemy will try to condemn you for that sin. That's not God's voice. Let his voice remind you that you're saved. And just like David, you'll find new joy.18:56 Guys, you can't behave your way into joy. You can't act your way into it. The law can't give you joy. It wasn't its purpose. The law was a guardian that kept us safe until the savior arrived.19:08 That's why we call the gospel the good news because we could not rescue ourselves. If the gospel is that we have to earn God's favor, it's not good news. It's a burden. The moment we're reminded19:20 of our salvation, our hearts are restored. And just like David, we find joy. And guys, the Christian life isn't that we hope someday to experience joy in heaven and we kinda bide our time from now to19:32 then. The word of God says that joy is available to us right now. And worship, worship's the avenue that leads us into it. Praising Jesus is the method to19:44 which God distributes that joy deep into our hearts. I love that Mary said, her soul praised the Lord, that her spirit rejoiced within her. It was almost like a pep talk19:56 for her own heart because I imagine at that moment her flesh probably wasn't super joyful. It was full of fear and worry and doubt. Right? The fear of that judgment, the people coming against her, worrying about20:07 provision, maybe even worried if whether or not Joseph would still have her hand in marriage. Her flesh was weak, but her spirit soared to the king. Because Mary worshiped when life was hard.20:19 She praised Jesus through the tears. When Mary couldn't see a way forward, she chose to look up. And that's my prayer for you and me this20:31 Christmas. That we wouldn't look to this world to provide us with something that only Jesus can. I think choosing to worship is the path that will20:43 lead us into joy. That'll lead us into the lasting joy that I pray each of you finds this Christmas. And so, I pray that you would anchor your life20:55 in the hope that only Jesus Christ can bring. I pray that you would find peace in the knowledge that you have been rescued. I pray you'd experience the21:07 love of Jesus in new ways, though scripture says it's too great for us to grasp. And I pray that in all of this, you would experience God's overwhelming21:19 joy, the joy of our salvation. Well, Merry Christmas from all of us at Everyman Ministries, and may God richly bless you next year.21:31 Isaiah 43 19 says, see, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up. Do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the21:43 wasteland. Hi. I'm Kenny Luck, founder and president of Everyman Ministries. And for the last 25 years, God has been using every man to reach, train, to encourage,21:55 and equip men to live out their calling as men. And today, I'm standing in Montana where we're hosting the very first every man encounter. God certainly is doing something22:06 new. We have a group of men here encountering ing God in powerful and in new ways. You know, 20 25 was such an incredible year, and we are in awe of22:18 everything that God has done. Every man was a part of live events all over California, Illinois, Wisconsin, Texas, and here in22:29 Montana, and those were just the live events. We did father son events, men's retreats, youth camps, church services, school chapels, discipleship conferences, and22:41 more. In 20 25, we continued to follow Christ's encouragement in Matthew 25, where he said, I was in prison and you visited me. We saw22:53 incredible fruit in our prison ministry and partnership with God behind bars. Can you believe 1848 men profess Christ for the first time this last year?23:05 Our content was viewed in prisons over 1300000.0 times. And here's the real exciting thing. We have 1600 men enrolled in Get Healthy courses.23:17 This year we introduced the eBook collection and the first 3 books have been seen over 11000 times. We get feedback every week from prisoners telling23:29 us about the encouragement and the transformations that are happening behind prison walls. In 20 25, God took the ministry of every man literally23:40 everywhere through our international partnership with pray dot com. All over the world, we've seen 7500000.0 minutes streamed on the Everyman platform. You know what that amounts to?23:52 188 countries all over the world. And now, we're using AI to translate our content into nearly every24:03 language, allowing us to encourage and instruct and teach every man like it says in Colossians 1 28. And we proclaim him admonishing every man and teaching24:15 every man so that we may present every man complete in Christ. Well, was 20 25. What does 20 26 hold? We wanna focus on 3 things that are new. The local24:27 church, the next generation of younger men, and discipling men on a daily basis. Let's talk about the local church. We are launching a brand new series of our classic24:38 get healthy discipleship program. Over 1000000 men have been through it and we're excited for the next generation of men to go through and get healthy in family and temptation and friendship and in their24:50 marriages. We're also going after men who are younger, the next generation. How? Through father son events. We're gonna have events that are geared up toward young adults and college age men to model what it means to be25:01 God's man. So you're gonna witness the launch of the dangerous good and young movement. In terms of discipling men daily, we're going to launch the new every man25:13 encounter app. We're so excited about this because you're gonna be able to walk through daily challenges, daily studies, along with all of our content with the men in25:25 your life. We're gonna share prayer requests through the app. We're gonna remain connected to your forever brothers in group settings and situations, be able to encourage and sharpen 1 another all through the Everyman25:36 Encounter app. Now, we are going to continue our partnerships with pray dot com. We're gonna expand that partnership. You know, they've asked us to film for all 17000000 of their users a new series25:48 for the women in men's lives. We're excited about that. They've also asked us to own Father's Day with unique, highlighted video content, daily25:59 devotions, and more to encourage all of those users. In 20 26, we're gonna continue to expand our prison ministry, Actually, looking at in person events within the walls of26:11 the prison for every man. We're gonna make some unique content just for the prisoners filmed exclusively behind bars. And we're gonna continue to speak at conferences, churches,26:23 schools, and retreats wherever God calls us to transform the lives of men. But listen, my brothers, it is going to take all of us. If we're gonna reach every man to26:34 continue teaching and encouraging men behind bars, to train up the next generation to live out their calling as God's man, and continue to see marriages strengthen, and finally, to reach men26:46 all over the world with the gospel of Jesus. It's just gonna take all of us because this is the great super story. The super adventure called the kingdom26:57 of God. And we all get to play our part. So this is our invitation to you to take up your spot in the kingdom and serve with us.27:09 God bless.
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