How Do You Spell "JOY"?

Mixed on Renewing Your Mind.

Our joy is so self-centered that unless things go the way we want them to go. We can't be happy about sort of strange ethic.

It is that the New Testament speaks of the virtue of being able to rejoice with those who are rejoicing. Joy is a curious emotion easy when things are going well difficult things and to add a wrinkle.

We have a natural aversion to others doing well. We have a tendency to want all the happy things ourselves. Sin tingles us up doesn't today on Renewing Your Mind. We continue Dr. RC Sproul series on joy with a message titled, how do you spell joy like all of us can think back in our lives particular moments or occasions or episodes in which we experienced an extraordinary measure of elation or of joy not only individually but also in terms of our communities, or even our nations. I can think of a couple of episodes I think I'll never forget as long as I live. One of them took place when I was six years old and I was in the street in Chicago and I was playing stickball on forget it because home plate was a sewer cover a manhole cover right in the middle of the street and in the center of that metal cover was a little hole just bought an inch and 1/2 in diameter and remember that because my dad had purchased me a real skinny slender little bat that we used to play stickball in the streets and one day when it was my turn to bad I dropped my back them. It just went right down that hole and I lost forever that I that was not the occasion of my joy that I had another bad then this one day we were playing stickball in the street and right in the middle of the game right when I was at back just seem like all heaven broke loose around me because people start running out of their apartments and out of the buildings around the street and they were reading on dishpan sin. They had spoons and they were screaming and yelling and acting in a crazy man I know what it happened and they were screaming all over the place. It's all it's over with V-E Day after the long and an arduous national struggle with World War II. The war finally ended and there was this pent up anxiety and pain that suddenly gave way to unspeakable joy and people acted crazy the way they were celebrating and I had very little understanding of what that was all about but I could certainly tell that a lot of people were very happy even though they were interrupting my Dick came a similar episode. Not quite as dramatic took place when I was a little older think I was 21 years old. The year was 1960 I grew up in the city of Pittsburgh and the city of Pittsburgh boasted a couple of major-league sporting teams. The Pittsburgh Pirates and the Pittsburgh Steelers and from the time the Steelers opened as of major-league National Football League team.

They went 40 years before they won a world championship before they even want to conference champions went 40 years. They were the perennial losers of the National Football League, but their record was not as dismal as that of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

I followed every card game in the 1940s and 1950.

I practically live the force field and when I wasn't at the game.

I was listening to the radio's even back in the days of the tickertape way in which the baseball games were being broadcast and I would live and die with the Pittsburgh Pirates and more often.

I died and I live in the 50s. For example, it was a great achievement for the parts to finish in seventh place rather nice place. They were the perennial cellar dwellers were used to save the parts that the Pittsburgh Pirates were in first place.

If you turn the newspaper upside down.

So we went through a lot of years of frustration until 1960. 1960 when the Pittsburgh Pirates actually won the National League pennant and the city went crazy. Then of course we had to go the World Series that was sort of an econometric because nobody expected the parts to win the World Series.

We're going up against the mighty New York Yankees. In fact, in the 1960 World Series. Some of you will remember the New York Yankees set the all-time record for the most runs scored in the seven-game World Series. Most people don't remember that what they do. Remember, was even though they set the record scoring the most runs. They lost the 1960 World Series in one of the most dramatic moments in baseball history. The seventh game of the World Series. The game is tied in the last of the ninth. The parts are up and I am there for works for you.

Sitting along the third base line Bill Mazeroski number nine not that great of a power hitter or even a great average hitter stands the plate and hits a homerun right over the 410 Morgan left centerfield over the head of a dejected Yogi Berra. And when that happened.

Pandemonium broke loose in Pittsburgh. I jumped up when I saw that Barbara left centerfield wall. I jumped up and I knocked a little 75-year-old lady right on the ground right in front of me and I stupid aerosol man, I'm so sorry I didn't mean to hurt you. She looked at me and she had a grin from ear to hear she's on the ground ceases. Suddenly she said all the places parts of won the World Series at other forget driving home from force field that day that it was on ceasing honking of car horns all over the city.

Great great joy because of the baseball the other side. If in our national psyche. We want to communicate the misery of sorrow we go to one of the most famous folklore items in our history little ballad called KC at the back. Remember the story of Casey strike one strike to everybody's waiting for Casey to hit the homerun is the Babe Ruth of mythology.

But what happens you know what happens. Casey, the mighty Casey goes down swing, and so what is the refrain. What is the conclusion of the story. There is no joy in Mudville for mighty Casey has struck out often wondered about how game can make people so happy or make people so sad when the Pittsburgh Steelers finally began to win the Super Bowl's and all that. I remember living and dying then and when the Steelers of the 70s would lose a football game.

I would go into depression. I could feel it for week I would have to struggle with my conscience. It was just getting there was more than a game. The sports teams that leave room for and identify with the somehow have some kind of vicarious representation for us. They represent not just our city or our nation. They represent us. They represent us in conflict and competition in striving for achievement. Is it interesting that when our team wins we say we won and when they lose they lose where love to identify with the winter.

We are not happy to identify with the loser but so much of the aspirations in the hopes of human beings are directed to things like that, which are only really representations of the human struggle and when it comes to rejoicing and adversity.

I always found it difficult to rejoice when my team lost when I was in high school I played baseball myself in two years in a row we were brought to the place where we were playing for the city championship and one year we won the championship and we wanted the last inning of the last game of the playoffs and I will never forget that. I mean, my feet were up in the year I was on cloud nine and I was so thrilled.

The next year we made it to the last very last game again, only that time we lost and it was a terrible terrible feeling and you watch what happens now when you watch a basketball game or football game or baseball game and a championship is on the line and you see what happens when one team prevails and the experience victory. How the enthusiasts people kiss them and hug them and all the rest and then the camera will shift to the loser side and you will see tears and dejection and disappointment and frustration and a sense of failure. I have to say to you that it's taken a long time in my life and I'm certainly not always there yet, but I have discovered that it's possible for my spirit to be able to rejoice when my team loses, how can that happen what I've done is used to just drive me crazy when I see the winning team in the other team going through all their celebrations after the victory and I would be miserable until I began to see. Wait a minute waiting those people are thrilled because they've achieved something they've worked so hard to accomplish, and this is an occasion of great joy that they're experiencing. It's not like this is a national disaster where everybody loses. There is somebody who's happy. And why can't we rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. See, that's one of the principles of joy that is taught us in the Scripture that our joy is not to be restricted to our own circumstances or to our own achievements but that we are to be able to find an occasion of joy for other people for their achievements for their successes and for their bounty. That's a liberating thing isn't where was saying in the game of golf, but every shot in golf make somebody happy. If you hit it, and it's a good shot.

It makes you happy but it makes your opponent unhappy if your opponent hits a bad shot. It makes him unhappy but it makes you happy. But what does it say about us says it so often, our joy and our happiness is so self-centered, so restricted to our own circumstances, that unless things go the way we want them to go the way in which they will directly benefit us. We can't be happy about. So what a strange ethic.

It is that the New Testament speaks of the virtue of being able to rejoice with those who are rejoicing doesn't say, rejoice with those who are rejoicing, except when they are rejoicing because they have beaten you.

The point is that we should not be jealous that we should not be covetous that we should not be envious, but that we should be able to enter into other people's joy and by the same token, we are supposed to be able to enter into other people's sorrow. This is what we call empathy, which is a little bit stronger than the word sympathy when we sit use the word sympathy, though originally the word meant very much like the word empathy means to us today to be empathetic is to be able to feel what somebody else feels the concept of sympathy. The prefix comes from the Greek word soon, which means with together with and the path fee comes from the concept of pathos or of feeling from which we get the English word passion and to have sympathy means to feel with other people.

How else can we explain some of the actions of Jesus himself. How else can we explain the shortest verse in the Bible and the gospel of John, Jesus wept.

Here is the one who is the resurrection who is the wife who comes to the funeral of Lazarus.

He knows very well he's going to raise Lazarus from the dead, and yet everybody there is morning and Jesus comes and he weeps. He participates in the sorrow of his friends. He weeps with those who weep and he rejoices with those who rejoice that takes grace.

It really does take grace to be able to find joy in our own hearts, one people are experiencing joy in theirs and again they have received which means in some way our loss. It doesn't just involve baseball game.

It involves job promotions. It involves business contracts.

It involves so many of those things that touch us in our daily lives and as Christians we are to be able to look at things, not just from our own selfish perspective.

I remember the first year I was a Christian I learned this simple childlike acrostic with respect to the word joy and I'm sure you've all heard it.

How do you spell joy JOY and what does joy stand for Christmas little children's lesson J stands for Jesus.

O stands for others and wise stands for yourself.

The little lesson that we God's children was that the secret the joy is to put Jesus first, others second and yourself third.

Well obviously that's a very easy I DS so simple that you can take an acrostic like this impeach up to five year old kids but to learn and to get it in the bloodstream is a Herculean task. But there really is a profound truths contained in this simple childlike illustration, but part of our loss of joy or the elusiveness of joy is because we spell it you judge where the Y comes first, and others come second and Jesus comes third, and when that happens there's a long way in a big difference between joy and yardage. Yardage will not produce joy unless you rearrange the priorities and rearrange the focus of your attention. Jesus was called a man of sorrows, and yes, he was acquainted with grief but he acquainted himself with our sorrow and with our grief and Jesus is the only person in history who spelled the word joy without the J being at the front. Jesus put himself last in order to make it possible for us to participate in joy and yet Jesus though he is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. I believe was the most joyful human being who ever left.

Why, because he knew the father better than any human being. He understood the goodness of God better than any human being. He was more in tune with the will of God than any human being and he was utterly radiant and obedience brings the fruit of joy to the soul. I believe that Jesus Christ was the happiest man that ever lived, and that even the sorrows and griefs in the pain and the torment that he had to endure none of those things were able to rob him of the blessedness and of the felicity that characterized the very heart of his life as a man of joy, but his priorities were right. He cared about other people to such a degree that he was able to maintain this kind of virtue and so I conclude this segment by saying to us if you want to be happy.

If you want to be joyful and we need to learn how to rejoice with those who rejoice, and to weep with those who we and we cannot do that unless we somehow are able to escape from life work. All we care about is ourselves. You know the attributes of love that we read about in first Corinthians 13. Give us an idea of what that looks like patient's kindness, no envying or boasting no arrogance or rudeness, not insisting on our own way. Joy comes through selflessness we been listening to a message by Dr. RC Sproul titled how do you spell joy this is Renewing Your Mind and I'm we well thank you for being with us that were making our way through this series on joy this week. Learning how to rejoice in this fallen, imperfect world. This five part series on joy along with a booklet that R0 titled how can I have joy in my life are available to you for your donation of any amount we'd like you to call us at 800-435-4343.

You can also make your request securely online by going to Renewing Your Mind.org before we go today. Here's RC with a final thought for us a few weeks ago I had an opportunity to have a somewhat lengthy conversation with the woman I know who has cancer and she's been through all kinds of difficult treatments and surgeries and all the rest and frankly the outcome of these things are still in doubt, and yet this woman displays such a remarkable radiance and every time I see her. She seems happy. She seems joyous and I had this long conversation with her and I started the conversation by asking her how are you doing how are things going because I was genuinely concerned about her and I asked about her and about 15 seconds. She gave me a summary about how she was doing and then she said to Mabel RC how are you doing and I went on and answer the question and then after the conversation was over, which took about 1/2 an hour and I was going home. It struck so I can't believe this. I went up to that woman to ask her how she was doing and to manifest my concern for her well-being and that conversation took 30 minutes.

15 seconds of which was devoted to her situation and the whole rest of the time she was talking to me about my troubles and about my worries about my anxieties and she was comforting me.

I couldn't believe what a tremendous woman. No wonder she can maintain her joy because she's not so wrapped up in herself tomorrow on Renewing Your Mind to scroll shows that the greatest joy doesn't come from anything here on.

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