Don’t forget who you belong to!

Our joy is in Jesus, who seeks and saves the lost

Editor’s note: Look for a sermon or lesson from Houston’s diverse faiths every week in Belief. Our joy is in Jesus. Because our joy is in another, our joy does not depend on us, our mood, the company we keep, the pressures we feel in our daily life, or the anxiety we experience because of our sin and spiritual weakness. It cannot be taken from us. There are many opportunities for us to feel anxiety in the presence of a holy and righteous God. This anxiety so easily cheats us of the joy that we have in Christ. As the Psalmist says, “In your presence there is fullness of joy” (Psalm 16:11). There is fullness of joy in Jesus (1 John 1:4).

Our joy is in another. It is not in ourselves. John the Apostle was writing of his experience with the Lord Christ, whom he heard, saw, experienced and even touched. What was written about Christ joined John’s readers in the divine fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.

The apostolic Word unites John’s readers with the God who manifested Himself to His people in the person of His Son. Jesus says, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). Our joy is in Him, not ourselves, and because it is in Him it is full and complete. Jesus found His joy in others, too. His joy is to seek and save the lost. His joy is in His mission to save the world. His joy was to endure the cross for sinners like us (Hebrews 12:2 Gk). And our joy is in Him! The world hates us because our joy is not settled in the things of this world. The sacrilege of the world is to love itself, rather than to find joy as the beloved of Jesus. This is why the world must hate those who find joy in Jesus. We Christians know who we are because we have fellowship with the God who reveals Himself to us in Christ.

The world is lost and always has been, but its wandering has gotten clearer recently. We know who we are, while those who love the world are trying to create an identity out of thin air. We know who we are because we have fellowship with the God who names us at the font: as a child of God who is named by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

When I was a young man my mother would always say to me as I went off with my friends, “Don’t forget who you belong to!” She did not mean her and my father. She meant my heavenly Father. When we know who our God is, then we know who we are. What joy there is in that knowledge, a knowledge delivered to us by the Word of God.

The joyous fellowship that we have with God through the Word of His chosen apostles is a matter for

wonderment. He seeks fellowship with sinners like us.

I had the joy of sharing our holy faith with a Kurdish man. He asked good questions about the faith of Christ. I had such joy to say that Jesus is our way to the Father. “Christianity is not a path, at least not in the way in which a road map charts a path. No, Christianity’s way is a person: Christ Himself. Christianity is not a way of living. No, it is a life that is Christ’s own life. He is your life and you are hidden in Him, as St. Paul says (Colossians 3:4). Christianity is not a truth. No, it is the truth in the flesh of God’s own Son.”

This Kurdish man heard these words with tears in his eyes. He said wonderingly, “Is this your God?”

What joy we share with those who hear of Christ’s enfleshment of Mary and His suffering and death for the sins of the world. Jesus finds His joy in us that He might be our joy. His joy is not mere feeling or experience. His very joy is made complete only in His suffering and death, because it is the joy He has in another. This is the joy He has in us, whom He has redeemed.

We have joy in Him even when death takes one of our loved ones. When his daughter Magdalena died, Martin Luther said, “I am joyful in spirit but I am sad according to the flesh. The flesh doesn’t take kindly to this … . She is surely at peace and she is well off there, very well off, and yet to grieve so much.” (AE 54:432)

Our blessed dead are very well off indeed in the full fellowship of the church in heaven. They have fullness of joy. In that sharing our joy is made complete, because we have joy in Jesus. Scott R. Murray is the Senior Pastor at Memorial Lutheran Church, 5800 Westheimer in Houston. Information: mlchouston.org.