Please turn with me in your Bible first to the book of Galatians, chapter 5, and then second, to the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 8. This summer on Sunday nights we’re in a series on the fruit of the Spirit. So Wiley started last week; tonight we will be looking at joy, “In Praise of Joy.”
And before we read, something to help orient us to the text tonight. The American rockstar, Bruce Springsteen, has talked many times over the years about his rocky and complicated relationship with his own father. He said in an interview a few years back that the baggage that he carried from his father’s addiction and hardness and various other issues, that that baggage caused Bruce to drive people away that he cared about, to control others, to contain his emotions to a damaging degree. It kept him from knowing his true self. And he said, “Now the bill collector is knocking and his payment will be in tears.”
There’s a Netflix special, “Springsteen on Broadway,” and Bruce, over the years in the wake of all of the wounds that he carried from his relationship with his dad, he tried to be generous with his dad; he tried to bless his dad. He tried to pursue his dad and be kind to his dad. And on that Netflix special, there is a moving story where Bruce says that in the final days of his wife’s first pregnancy, so just before Bruce first became a dad, that his dad drove 500 miles to Los Angeles to his home for breakfast. And he says that he “received a surprise visit from my father, and he just showed up.” And Bruce said, as he recounts the story, he said, “Dad, it’s good to see you, but what’s up?” And his dad, never a talkative man, blurted out, “You’ve been quite good to us, Bruce. You’ve been quite good to us, but I just want to acknowledge that I wasn’t very good to you. I wasn’t very good to you.” And Bruce said that the room stood still and Bruce, telling this story, starts to tear up. And he wipes his eyes and he said, “To my shock, the unknowledgeable was being acknowledged. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn an apology of some sort was being made, and it was. Here in the last days before I was to become a father, my own father was visiting me to warn me of the mistakes that he had made and to own them.” And Bruce said his own father, who died in 1998, Bruce said it was the greatest moment of his life with his dad and it was all that he needed.
So one of the most human things you can ask that everybody is dealing with is the question, “Can people change? Can people change?” It is of course a deeply personal question that we may desperately ask of someone in our lives, of someone we love – maybe a father who is a mess, like in that case with Bruce; maybe a friend, maybe a family member who is a mess. We might ask of them, “Will they ever change? Can they change?” And if we are honest, it’s one of the deepest longings that we have that we often feel stuck in a prison in the same patterns and behaviors and mediocrity. “Can I change? Can I really change?”
And this summer we’re looking at the fruit of the Spirit. We are looking at God’s promise to change His people and what the fruit of the Spirit means for our real lives, for our daily, ordinary lives. And we believe this is part of our vision at First Presbyterian Church – that the Gospel affects all of who we are. The good news for people like us is that the grace of Jesus comes to us to forgive us, to wash our sin away, to make us clean. That is justification. But that grace doesn’t stop there. The good news doesn’t stop there, but that grace also comes, the work of the Spirit changes us, and is committed to our endurance, is committed to our holiness, our beauty, and that is sanctification. So the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, changing your character. That’s what the Holy Spirit is all about and that’s what Galatians chapter 5 is all about. So this is not a series, as Wiley said last week, on a virtue catalog, but this is a series on the character qualities that God Himself in heaven embodies. Galatians chapter 5, the fruit of the Spirit, these are the descriptions of Jesus’s character. That Jesus is love, Jesus is full of joy, Jesus is peace. And which Jesus you might ask? Well, the same Jesus who is inhabiting you, the Spirit of Christ. And so the Spirit of Christ inhabiting you will make the character of Christ gradually grow more and more in you and more and more in our life together. So that’s what we are considering this summer – the fruit of the Spirit.
And so before we read Galatians chapter 5, Ecclesiastes chapter 8, let’s pause and pray and ask for God’s help. Let’s pray.
Our great God and heavenly Father, we give You thanks that we can be under Your Word tonight. We pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts would be pleasing and acceptable in Your sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Galatians chapter 5, beginning in verse 22:
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”
If you’ll turn with me to Ecclesiastes chapter 8, Ecclesiastes chapter 8, and verse 15:
“And I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.”
Amen. This is God’s Word to us.
I want to pose a question to you. It’s a strange question, one that I heard in a sermon almost 20 years ago, and here’s the question – “If you wanted to get rid of Christianity, if it was your goal to wipe out Christianity, what kinds of people would you start with?” And the minister that posed that odd question, “What kinds of people would you get rid of?” – he said, “I wouldn’t get rid of the big names. I wouldn’t get rid of the TV preachers.” And he said, “I’ll tell you the person I would get rid of. Joni Eareckson Tada.” And that’s a name that is familiar to many of you. She is in a wheelchair; she has been for decades now.
One of the many things that she does, she speaks all over the world, she’s written numerous books, she’s engaged in all sorts of ministry, but one of the things that maybe not is known that she does is she has spearheaded as a woman who is herself confined to a wheelchair, she has set up a program called, “Wheels for the World.” And so what this program does is, where prisoners in American prisons receive mechanical repair skills and the prisons receive wheelchairs. And these prisoners who need the dignity of work, repair these wheelchairs for particular needs and sizes of particular people all over the world, for disabled men and women and boys and girls. And so people, families that are dealing with disability all over the world, receive wheelchairs at no cost. The cost is absorbed by financial supporters. And you really don’t hear much about this. And on the website it says that it is “Designed to put the love of Jesus on display from collection to restoration to distribution. Lives are being changed by the Gospel.” And so it helps the prisoners, it helps the families that receive these wheelchairs, and when she speaks about it, she beams. When she speaks about it, she has so much joy.
And this minister 20 years ago, when he told that story, he said, “That’s the kind of person I would start with. That’s the kind of person that I would get rid of.” And you know what I mean. She does it out of joy. She is confined to a wheelchair. There is something supernatural about that.
This evening we are going to talk about joy. C.S. Lewis said that, “Joy is serious business.” And I want to look first at a definition of joy. What is Paul talking about in Galatians chapter 5 when he uses the word, “joy,” that we should be people of joy, men and women of joy. What does that mean? And then second, I want to look at a direction. How do you cultivate joy? The Bible gives us direction in how we cultivate joy in our life together.
So first, a definition. Joy, supernatural joy – what does it mean? For some in the room tonight, you are a natural ray of sunshine, but for some in the room, joy maybe sounds unrealistic. Joy maybe sounds naive. Joy sounds foolish in light of the chaos of your life or in light of the crazy that’s out in the world. Or maybe because of the wounds and the burdens and the scars and the sadness that you carry, that joy seems impossible. Some in the room have struggled with Parkinson’s and infertility and cancer. Some have walked through divorce. There has been the death of someone precious to them. There are so many different stories in the room, but you think, to me, joy seems impossible. Joy isn’t easy to define. We’re prone to think that joy, being a person of joy, is about your natural disposition or your natural temperament; that I have a joyful personality. Or maybe that joy is a spontaneous emotion; that I had a special feeling, that I had a joyful feeling at the beach or at my wedding or at the birth of a child, at a big game. Now, we’re prone to think in that moment that that is joy.
One author, in his Galatians commentary, I think has helpfully, for each of the fruit of the Spirit, has given a definition, an opposite, and a counterfeit. And so for joy, he says the definition is a buoyancy. There is a spiritual buoyancy that comes from deep focus on the unchanging privileges that we have in Christ and in His Gospel; that joy is a spiritual buoyancy. He said the opposite of joy would be hopelessness or despair. And the counterfeit of joy is an elation that comes from enjoying blessings rather than the blesser. So joy is buoyancy. It is spiritual buoyancy, a confidence in God’s promises. That there is a radiance to it. That it’s not naive; it’s not sentimental. Johnathan Edwards writes a lot about joy. He speaks of “the quiet sweetness of true joy, the calm contentedness, resting satisfied in God, in His beauty, in His love.” You can find, Edwards says, in this world “an eternal brightness, an external happiness, hiding internal misery, and you can also find in this world an external solemnity or an external seriousness that hides internal delight.” And so he is saying joy is difficult to catch. It’s difficult to detect.
But for Edwards – and we’ll get back to this later – joy is all about beauty. Joy is all about beauty for Jonathan Edwards, and specifically the beauty of Christ. He says, “All the good things in the world – the taste, the sights, the smells, the relationships – are echoes.” That all of those things are echoes of the true joy, “the joy which every earthly pleasure is a shadow.” And so every pleasure is an arrow pointing back to Him. C.S. Lewis believed that joy in this world is “a yearning.” It’s a yearning that here and now we only get whiffs of, but he called these “encounters with joy.” So the taste, the sights, the smells, the relationships, that they are echoes, that they are like an arrow, that they are shadows, that they are a yearning, that they are whiffs and encounters with joy.
But joy is something that is not possible without God. “It is the property of Christians,” writes Jonathan Cruse. “The gigantic secret of the Christian,” G.K. Chesterton said. Dominic Smart said that, “Christian joy is a misfit condition. It makes a Christian not fit into the world.” It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t add up. Because we do know this about joy. It is a cheerful confidence. It is a spiritual buoyancy in all weathers. In all weathers. And we know that because in most any context that you find joy in the Bible – James chapter 1, Romans chapter 5 – it’s almost always in the context of deep suffering and deep sadness; in the shadowlands. And so, “Count it all joy, brothers,” James 1, “when you meet trials.” Or Romans chapter 5 that we looked at this morning. “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, but we also rejoice in our suffering, knowing that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” And not only that, but in the Bible’s primary book on joy, the signature book on joy, Philippians, it’s written from a man in prison. Paul is in prison when he writes Philippians and he is writing to people who are anxious and fretful and he says to them, “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice!” So we know that joy is not to be found in things going well for you or going according to your plans.
But an important part of unpacking joy, a definition of joy, is noting that joy in the Bible is both a gift and a responsibility. And so joy in the Bible is both a gift from God and a human responsibility. It’s an imperative; it’s a command in Scripture. And so it’s a gift. And you see this all throughout the book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes chapter 2, verses 24 and 25, joy is from “the hand of God.” In chapter 3, verses 12 and 13, joy is God’s “gift to man.” Chapter 5 verse 19, God gives wealth, God gives possessions, but He also gives joy to “accept His lot, to enjoy his toil – this is the gift of God.” And so it is a gift. Joy is a gift. The Bible is clear that joy will not come through the pursuit of more but the ability to be thankful for what you already have.
So if it is a gift, do we ask for joy? Think about Psalm 51. Psalm 51, where the psalmist writes, “Restore to me the joy of my salvation.” Restore my joy. And so yes, you ask. That is a prayer, “Restore my joy. Restore the joy of my salvation.” That is a prayer that we are far less acquainted with than we ought to be. “God, give me joy. God, help me to find joy. Help me find my way back to joy. Let me have an abundance of the joy of Jesus.” Joy is a gift.
But joy is also an imperative. Joy is also a command. Philippians chapter 4, “Rejoice in the Lord always.” But joy is not as easy as it sounds. There is a line that is familiar to many of us that “you will not drift into joy.” You will not drift there. It requires effort. And grace is opposed to self sufficiency. Grace is not opposed to effort. You can’t willpower your way into joy, but there are habits that help you to choose joy. There are habits that help you to choose joy. And so how do you get that? What is the path to joy? That’s the second thing. The direction of joy. How do we cultivate joy? I want to look at a couple of things here. I want to look at joy and our humility, and joy and our thanksgiving, and then joy and beauty.
So first, the path to joy is humility. Paradoxically, the humbler we are, the more joy we experience. Joy requires something that is hard for us. It’s hard for me. And it requires us being awake. It requires the whole person – the heart, the mind, the will. It requires slowing down. Joy requires a new posture – a posture of being aware and awake. And maybe Jesus’ word for that is “repentance.” Repentance. The hospitality of the heart to God’s heart, which is easier said than done. Paradoxically, the humbler we are, the more joy we experience. Being humble enough to see gift, gift, gift. I didn’t merit it. I didn’t deserve it. I’m not entitled to it. Joy is tied to grace. And in our pride, we make a habit of renouncing grace. Jonathan Edwards says, “The best joys cast the soul down low and in the dust in humility.” The best joys cast the soul down low and in the dust in humility.
And maybe a practical application of this – Are you humble enough to pray? Prayer requires humility. Are you humble enough to pray, to actually pray? Joy and prayer are inseparable. If there is an absence of joy in your life, do you pray? Who are you listening to? The humbler we are, the more joy we experience.
Second, the path or the direction to joy is thanksgiving. So how do you choose joy? You have to choose thanksgiving. And you choose it. It’s a choice. You see this in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. Psalm 45, “For all Your works shall we give thanks to You.” In the New Testament, 1 Corinthians chapter 15, “Thanks be to God who gave us the victory through our Lord Jesus.” I think that we all know the language that comes easy to us – apathy and cynicism and envy and forgetfulness and ingratitude. It is famously said that the culprit of joy or the thief of joy is what? Comparison. Comparison is the thief of joy. It’s hard to be joyful when we are bitter about what we don’t have. It’s hard to be joyful when we are looking at another’s life and thinking, “Why doesn’t my life look more like their life?” This is a new language – thanksgiving. And none of us is a native speaker. You have to cultivate, like a new spiritual muscle, the habit of thanksgiving in your life.
A book that is worth your time, it was a New York Times bestseller a number of years ago by Ann Voskamp title, One Thousand Gifts. And the whole book turns around one Greek word, “eucharisteo.” That’s the Greek word at the Last Supper for, “He gave thanks.” He gave thanks. And the root of that word is “charis” meaning “grace.” And the word of “charis” is “chara,” meaning “joy.” And so the author asks, “Where can joy be found?” And the author had this starting revelation. Where can joy be found? Only in eucharisteo. Only in giving thanks. Where can joy be found? Joy can be found in thanksgiving. “Where thanks is possible,” she said, “joy is possible.” And the book is really the story of her learning – and that’s a key word, “learning” to give thanks; learning to give thanks for simple things. She has a thanksgiving journal and she starts to write them down until she got to 1,000.
When was the last time we chronicled our thanksgiving? When was the last time that we started the day with thanks? Which of us woke up this morning thinking, “I can see. I have teeth. I have taste buds.” Just thanking God. That’s what her book is, just thanking God for simple things. What about not so simple things? When was the last time that you thanked God that He pursued you? When was the last time you thanked God that He adopted you or that He keeps you? Those are not so simple things. When was the last time that you thanked God that the Spirit dwells within you, the Father’s smiles are yours, that Jesus died to win you? That child that we sing, “Child of heaven can thou repine?” Can you be discontent with that? You are never alone. When was the last time that you gave thanks for that? That God restores your soul. That He promises that He began a good work in you and will carry it to completion. When was the last time that you gave thanks for that?
I remember at Thanksgiving holidays as a child, the goal when we would play that “What are you thankful for?” game with me and my brothers was to sit closest to my dad so that we would go first. Because if someone said, “family” before you said “family” then you were in trouble! As a child, that is a difficult thing for me at least! What changed that game for me, actually, was having children who are just honest. And so we play that game at night from time to time – “What are you thankful for?” And my kids will say things like, Keifers! And they’ll say hugs and cousins and lightning bugs. “I’m thankful for summer.” That has changed that game for me – just whatever is closest to their hearts.
For you and for me, joy doesn’t come from getting what you think that you want; it comes from learning, from learning to be thankful for what you already have. In fact, the path to discovering thankfulness often passes through suffering and it can be difficult if not impossible to give thanks for things that we are not thankful for – for pain, for loneliness, for loss, for cancer. But before it is a feeling, thankfulness is a choice. We’re not called to give thanks for all things, but in all things. But this is where you become a thankful person. I wonder if it has ever cost you to say these words – “I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise will continually be on my mouth.” That is a sacrifice if you have uttered those words. It’s a sacrifice to be thankful in those times, and this is what the Bible calls it. “A sacrifice of thanksgiving” – that’s Psalm 116. “I am greatly afflicted, but I will offer to You my sacrifice of thanksgiving.” And so joy in thanksgiving – where can joy be found? Only in giving thanks.
And last, the path or the direction to joy. We looked at humility in thanksgiving, and then last, beauty. I mentioned Jonathan Edwards earlier. Edwards saw what many writers and preachers today do not – that the way to cultivate joy in God’s people was not to talk about joy, but to talk about God, to talk about the beauty of God. Dane Ortlund wrote that, “A park guide doesn’t help his band of tourists feel awe at the Niagara Falls. He doesn’t give a lecture, but he shows them beauty.” And so we don’t mainly need to talk about joy tonight; we mainly need to talk about Jesus. How do you get joy? How do you cultivate joy? Do you lack joy? Well we don’t mainly need to talk about joy; we need to talk about Jesus.
Christian, do you lack joy tonight? Think about the beauty of Jesus. “Fair is the sunshine. Fairer still the moonlight, and all the twinkling starry host. Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer than all the angels heaven can boast.” Do you lack joy? Think about the heart of Jesus tonight. He says in the Gospels, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.” Do you lack joy? Think about the humility of Jesus. Think about the humility of Jesus that He laid aside His outer garments and, taking a towel, He tied it around His waist and He poured water into a basin. He began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with a towel. Do you lack joy? Think about Jesus in Gethsemane, sweating blood. “Take this cup from Me. Not My will but Yours be done.” Do you lack joy? Think about the cross of Jesus. “For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross.” Do you lack joy? Think about Jesus with the outsiders and the outcasts. Think about Jesus with the sinners and the sufferers. “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden.” Do you lack joy?
Well wouldn’t you rather think about Jesus, wouldn’t you rather think about Jesus than anything else in this world? Isn’t it wonderful to think about Jesus? Isn’t it wonderful to think about the beauty of Jesus and the heart of Jesus and the humility of Jesus and the cross of Jesus? Jesus at Gethsemane and Jesus at Calvary, Jesus with His friends, Jesus with those who have blown it, Jesus with me. How do we choose joy? We gaze at the Lord’s beauty. We look at Jesus Christ.
There’s a psalm that I love. I referenced Psalm 51 earlier; it’s a verse in that psalm. Verse 8, where a humbled David and a repentant David, he prays, “Let me hear joy and gladness.” Psalm 51 verse 8, “Let me hear joy and gladness.” This is one of those famous – Psalm 32, Psalm 51 – the two songs that David penned in his repentance after Nathan had confronted him and he saw his sin. And he wrote Psalm 32, “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,” and then Psalm 51, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your steadfast love.” And so David, he is coming empty-handed to God. He is coming with his confession. And he knows of God’s grace, but I love this language – “God, you have removed my guilt. You have washed me. You have obliterated my past record. You have made me clean.” But then here in verse 8, David is praying, “Let me hear, God, that You are not ashamed of me. Let me hear that You can still have joy in me, that You can still have gladness in me.”
You know, back in the spring and summer of 2020, in the middle of COVID lockdowns, that was a strange time. And that was especially at times strange for ministers. And there were a lot of COVID, 2020 spring and summer weddings where there were masks and there were social distancing and in many cases, no reception and no food and no dancing. And one of those weddings that I officiated was uniquely strange. I got a phone call – this was probably the summer of 2020 and some of the restrictions had lifted – but I got a phone call from a couple in north Mississippi on Friday night. And I didn’t know this couple, and they called me to tell me that their minister who was officiating the wedding the next day had tested positive for COVID. And so they’re looking for a minister. And I had met the bride years before. I didn’t know her but I had met her. I had never laid eyes on the groom.
And so I drove up to north Mississippi the next morning and arrive at this church about an hour before the service and I go into the room with the bride to pray with her, to make sure that she knows that I am on site. And I joked with my wife later that there’s always some anxiety in that room, in the bride’s room before the wedding; there’s no anxiety like a COVID bride anxiety! And I walked in, I pray with her, she’s talking about all sorts of things – the social distancing, the plan for the reception – I could just feel her anxiety rising. And so I got out of the room, of course as quickly as possible, and I went and I found the groom. I introduced myself to him 30 minutes before his wedding and I said, really for my conscience sake as a minister, really I just need you to answer two questions – “Do you love Jesus Christ?” and “Do you love this bride?” And the amazing thing was, in the room with the groom, there was no anxiety. He wasn’t thinking about the flowers. He wasn’t thinking about the photographer. He wasn’t thinking about the reception. And he said, “David, I love Jesus Christ and I love my bride.” And I will never forget how smiley he was. I’ll never forget his gladness and his joy in his bride.
And it is a good reminder for us – Is Jesus Christ, is He distracted about a million things? What is Jesus thinking about? Hebrews chapter 12 says, on the cross, “For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross.” What was the joy before Jesus? His joy was you, Christian, you with all of your mess, with all of your mediocrity. He says to you, “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.” And so believer in Jesus, the Lord has removed your guilt. He has obliterated your guilty record. He has washed you. He has made you clean. He has robed you in His righteousness. But have you remembered the good news lately? That the Lord delights in you, that He has joy and gladness in you, that when He sees you from afar – Luke 15 – when He sees you from afar, His prodigal child, He runs, embraces and kisses you. That prodigal love. That there is a ring and a robe for you, Christian. That He gives His sandals for you. There is a calf being fattened for you and a feast for you. All of it. All of it is declaring the joy, the joy that God has in you.
That prayer that I referenced earlier, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, restore the joy of your salvation,” is that a prayer that you need to pray tonight? “God, restore my joy. Restore the joy of your salvation.” And if it is, you can bring your shame, you can come as you are. The beauty of Jesus, the joy of Jesus will be a medicine to you so that you can say, “The bones that you have broken will rejoice.” This is the strength of God in you, Christian. It is the strength of His grace to form you from the inside out, deep inside your character. Christian, it is happening, the Spirit is at work in you producing this work even now. This is good news for us. Let me pray for us. Let’s pray.
Our great God and heavenly Father, we pray that You would grow us and that You would mature us so that we would bear the fruit of Your character in our lives. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.