One of the things that’s clear when we look at the early days of the church’s history is the joy that sustains and moves believers. Pentecost must have been exhilarating. God is among them. And they have no trouble sharing—not only their lives but their time and their goods. People around can’t help noticing them.
Perhaps you can recall such a time. Your sins were forgiven. You knew God. You knew God knew you! Around you were people with whom you could share the riches of your life. The troubles that surfaced barely ruffled the surface.
The book of Acts is like that. The disciples are ‘filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit’.[i] They rejoice even as they suffer, and rejoice as the gospel reaches new peoples.[ii]
James Denney tells us,
‘There is not in the New Testament from beginning to end…a single word of despondency or gloom. It is the most buoyant, exhilarating, and joyful book in the world. The men who write it have indeed all that is hard and painful in the world to encounter; but they are of good courage because Christ has overcome the world.[iii]
Jesus Christ has taken the matter of salvation out of our hands. He’s shown us that we’re in trouble with God. But then, he’s washed us clean and given us new life by his Spirit. We’ve begun to live in fellowship with God, and so, with one another.
This joy is not a ‘nice’ extra that some Christians have. It what makes worship real, our fellowship rich and our proclamation effective. Joy is commanded.[iv] So, losing it is a culpable offence!
Paul asks the Galatians where their sense of blessing has gone—a word that has overtones of joy.[v] And Jesus asks the Laodicean church where their first love has gone—together, of course, with its joy.[vi] He calls on them to change! He’s standing at the door of every believer’s heart and will ‘come in’ to those who open up. He’ll eat and drink with them. Their joy will be restored!
We need to see that there are roadblocks to joy. And there’s one in particular that’s deep-seated and persistent. It probably affects all of us.
Here it is. It’s letting something other than God’s justifying grace become a central issue for us. We’re refusing to rejoice until this or that issue is fixed—to our view of what is right.
Paul won’t have this! He needs to tell Christians in Rome that opposing beliefs about what one should eat or not eat should never become a major issue. God’s reign, through Christ, is all about righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.[vii]
So, joy is not incidental. Together with righteousness and peace, it’s at the core of genuine faith. Nothing must get in the road of these.
But, when Paul links these three gifts—of righteousness, peace and joy, he’s recalling his celebration of our being justified by faith. We are called righteous by God, we have peace with God and rejoice in hope of sharing God’s glory.[viii]
And then, this joy continues through the trials we face because God’s love is being poured into our hearts. We’re actually rejoicing in God.
So, joy is one of the clear markers of God’s work in our lives. It’s what happens when we know that our righteousness is not something we’ve created!
Perhaps you’ve been a Christian for some time. Your faith has become a routine. Being joyful sounds like another thing to do! If this is our situation, we need to pray an old prayer first prayed by David: ‘Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit’.[ix]
Joy arises from knowing God as the big presence in our life—the giver of a life we didn’t deserve, the sustainer of a life we can’t maintain and the certainty of a life that will last forever!
But now, we need to note that when Paul describes the joy that comes from being justified by faith, he’s used a different word for joy than he usually does. It can mean exulting, or boasting as well as rejoicing.
It can be used in a good sense—as we have just seen. But he’s used it four times already in this letter, and all in its bad sense. They reveal that a false joy can prevent us from receiving the joy God gives. They show how being preoccupied with ourselves rather than with God is a major killer of joy.
Here the first two. Jews are exulting in their God—as though they possessed him. And they are exulting in their law—because they have something other nations don’t have.[x] They’re trying to suck joy out of a religion that uses God’s revelation, but forces it into a human agenda.
Paul can see that his fellow Jews don’t really have confidence in God’s presence and are trying to make up the deficit by their religious practice. He knows all about it because it’s the way he used to live! And he would also know about the trouble Jesus had when dealing with the same problem with the Pharisees.
But, in Paul’s other two uses of this word, he tells us that God’s mighty work in the gospel makes our false exulting look ridiculous.[xi] It’s nothing more than showmanship. It doesn’t impress God. It doesn’t even impress the people we are supposed to be a witness to.[xii] They can see right through us. We’re living selfishly. Just the same as everyone else!
And Jews have had no reason to descend to this level of hypocrisy. Their fore-father Abraham had nothing to boast about—except God’s kindness to him.[xiii] And now that the gospel is openly announced to all, neither does anyone else.
If we are exulting in our discipleship or ministry or good works, this will be taking the place of exulting or rejoicing in God and in the work of his Son and the Holy Spirit.
We’re operating, not from righteousness but from guilt. We’re operating from ourselves, not from God. We are earth-bound creatures. What we should be doing is descending on our duties from the sureness of being already righteous in the eyes of our God and Father.
A guilt-based religion like this breeds no joy! But it can happen so slowly that we don’t recognise it creeping up on us. We believe, rightly, that we should please God. But if we’ve drifted into being impressed with our performance, or being congratulated by peers, or, on the other hand, never feel that we’ve done enough to impress God, we’re on the way to not ‘needing’ his grace.
Not that we’d confess to that. But it’s happening.
Clearly, finding joy is contested territory. We’d like to find our joy in things we can see, or feel, or control—even our own good works! But God wants us to find our joy in his unseen presence and our participation in his loving. Our joy is the joy of children in the presence of their Father—repentant and grateful.[xiv]
And it needs to remain this way for the rest of our lives. Our track record is important for others to see so they can trust us and believe what we say. But with God, the only track record that counts is our walking humbly and gratefully in the grace he’s revealed to us.
And, as Paul has shown us, it’s here that joy abounds! It springs straight from God’s presence, it flows again after our failures and survives the malice of our enemies, and lasts until eternity!
So let me exhort us all, myself included. ‘Rejoice in the Lord! And again I say, rejoice!’
You will know that I’m quoting Paul—from his letter to the Philippians. And next time, we’ll look at this delightful letter, a letter with many references to joy.
[i] Acts 13:52
[ii] Acts 5:41; 8:8, 39; 11:23; 13:48, 52; 15:3, 31; 16:34
[iii] Studies in Theology, p.171f. Another writer has counted up 360 references to joy in the New Testament, and 11 different word groups to express what they felt.
[iv] 2 Cor. 13:11; Phil. 3:1; 4:4; 1 Thes. 5:16
[v] Gal. 4:15. He uses a word Jesus uses in his ‘beatitudes, which includes the idea of being joyful.
[vi] Rev. 3:15
[vii] Rom. 14:17
[viii] Rom. 5:1-11
[ix] Psa. 51:10
[x] Rom. 2:16, 23-24
[xi] Rom. 3:27
[xii] Rom. 2:23-24
[xiii] Rom. 4:1-3
[xiv] Here’s a link to some verse of mine about finding joy in our Father rather than in anything else.
Simply True 