Joy is one of those things we all want to have.  Not one person on this planet who doesn’t want it.  So – where does it come from.  I mean who’s idea is it and…well, is it for me?

There is something awesome about being around a person who has a deep sense of joy. Maybe you know one or two people like that and you know, often they're not sort of over the top and really out going people, sometimes they're just quiet and gentle but what you know is that there’s something inside them that you want. They seem to cope so well with the curve balls that life throws at them; they seem to have so much to give. They have like a quiet understated kind of gentle confidence.

Well maybe confidence isn't the right word; maybe contentment’s the word I'm looking for. And that persons joy kind of, well it invades your heart space and we want to be around them. It feels so good because they're safe and encouraging and they're just great to be with. Most of us, as I said, know one or two people like that and what we know is we just want to hang around them because it does us a whole bunch of good. My hunch is we all kind of relate to that.

Joy is a commodity that seems to be in such short supply. The advertising industry says 'if you buy this product you'll have joy' and so you buy the product and, and you and I know it never really brings us that deep abiding joy. It's a symptom of a greedy world; me, me, me, more, more, more but the more we chase after this precious commodity we call joy the more elusive it becomes.

For much of my life I truly subscribed to the philosophy that if all my needs and my desires were met then I'd experience joy. I had the big expensive house, I had the latest and greatest car, I had all the gadgets and they never brought me that joy, that contentment that I was looking for. I spent so much money trying, so where do you get it?

You know sometimes Christians get uncomfortable with the fact that we're talking about joy because it appears to be self centred; it appears that that we go and believe in God just to get His joy. Let me tell you something, when Jesus came to this planet He came proclaiming what? Well He came proclaiming the Kingdom of God, the reign of God in our lives and the people in 1st century Israel, well they got a bit confused because the Romans were occupying the country.

The Romans were occupying just about everywhere in the known world and Israel thought that God was going to send His messiah to set them free from that kingdom, that brutal reign of the Romans, and re-establish God’s kingdom in Israel and they'd have kings like David. Back to the good old days. But that's not what God was talking about. He was talking about something else; it's something that happens in our hearts. In Luke chapter 17, verse 20 it says:

Once the Pharisees came to Him and asked Him, "When is the Kingdom of God going to come back?" And Jesus said, 'you know, the Kingdom of God isn't going to come back in a way that you can see it or you say 'there it is' or 'here it is' because the Kingdom of God is within you.'

The people thought it was a physical kingdom, God had another plan. The apostle Paul puts it like this, he writes in Romans chapter 14, verse 17:

The Kingdom of God isn't about food and drink but it's about righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

What he was saying was that the Kingdom of God isn't about rules or reg's because they were having a discussion about what they could eat or drink. He said, "no, it's not about something physical and rules around that." It's about three things.

Firstly, righteousness which happens when we believe in Jesus, we experience the forgiveness of God and we have a right standing with God for the first time in our lives because we believe in Jesus and then we get our lives on track and in order and then we experience peace and joy. These are the things that the Kingdom of God is all about and they come to us through the Holy Spirit.

Not a peace and a joy that the world offers, it's not the same thing. You can't buy if off a rack in a store, you can't get it by spending money or going on a holiday or drinking good coffee. Not that at all, it's a gift from God and it's something Jesus talked about over and over and over again.

There was a time when Jesus was about to be crucified and everything was falling in a screaming heap and the apostles were afraid and He said to them:

I've said everything to you so that my joy maybe in you and that your joy maybe complete.

In this difficult time Jesus was about giving God’s joy to His people and He's still about that now, He's about giving us God’s joy and making our joy complete. See, not a joy you can buy off the rack, it's a joy that comes from out of this world.

Let me share something really interesting and profound with you. The Greek word – because of course the New Testament was written in Greek – the Greek word for joy is closely related to the word for 'free gift' and in fact the word for grace.

See God’s joy is this thing that He wants to lavish freely on us and over and over again that's what we see as Jesus talks about joy. Not something we conjure up for ourselves, not something we experience because something good happened today, God is a god of joy and He wants to fill us with His joy.

When you go to a place like Luke chapter 15 in the Bible, I really encourage you to do that, there's 3 stories. One of a shepherd who loses a sheep, one of a widow who loses a coin, one of a father who loses a son and in each case these people regain what they've lost and the point of each story is the joy that God experiences when He finds us. God is so over the top full of joy when He has a relationship with us. It's in His heart, it's in His nature.

The apostle Peter puts it this way, he says:

Even though you haven't seen Him with your own eyes, you love Him and even though you don't see Him now you believe in Him and you're filled with an unspeakable and glorious joy because you're receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

I didn't realise it at first but as my relationship with Jesus began to grow that wondrous joy filled my heart. Not something we can conjure up, its God’s joy and He pours it into our hearts through His Holy Spirit as we experience His forgiveness and start to live in His goodness and ditch the rubbish we used to think, speak and do. That's why Paul wrote:

The Kingdom of God isn't about rules and regulations and physical things, it's about righteousness, peace and joy.

God’s righteousness, God’s peace, God’s joy that are given to us through the Holy Spirit. Totally out of this world. See until we experience it we don't understand it and even when we do it's impossible to find words that describe the wondrous reality of His joy and His peace because it's a glorious unspeakable joy. Not from this world, from Him.

And we can look in as many holes and under as many logs as we like but it's not until we make a decision to accept Jesus as our own, to put our trust in Him, that we start to experience a joy that's completely out of this world. As we dwell on His presence and pray we're filled with a wonder and an awe and a joy unspeakable. Out of this world.