Where Is Your Joy?
In Galatians 5, the last point of the chapter discusses walking in the Spirit (Gal 5.16-26). A major point of that discussion is “the fruit of the Spirit” in vv. 22-23. Preaching through the passage, a list like this gives me a glorious opportunity to slow right down in my usual “glacial” method of Bible exposition.
The topic I’d like to address today is the second aspect of the fruit of the Spirit, joy. We are all very familiar with this term (and the others on the list). What I’d like to do is just stop here and think about it a bit longer than normal, to let this word sink down into our ears and into our hearts.
You no doubt heard a definition of joy that goes something like this: “deep-seated gladness regardless of circumstances”1 A similar word that gives some insight into this is grace, charis in Greek. Joy shares the same root as grace, it is chara in Greek. Grace is unmerited favor we say. It is “God’s riches at Christ’s expense” — but not at our expense. Grace doesn’t depend on the qualities of the one receiving it. Similarly, joy doesn’t depend on the circumstances of the one experiencing it, or perhaps better, in keeping with our passage, producing or manifesting it. You don’t “do” joy, you have joy. You produce joy. You manifest joy. It’s fruit, not the product of your own effort.
The world will talk about joy, too. Sometimes they get close to getting it right, but often they don’t quite get it at all. Aristotle, it is said, thought of joy as “finding the ideal mean between the excesses of pleasure (satiety) and pain (suffering).”2 What Aristotle means, I think, is that you don’t want to be so full of pleasure that you are “on a high” all the time. And of course, you don’t want to be in pain any time. So for him, joy is “hitting the sweet spot” between the surfeits of pleasure and the dregs of pain.
That’s not really what the Bible has to say about joy. The fruit of the Spirit is joy. Always. It doesn’t matter what your circumstances are, through the Spirit, your soul produces joy. It bears that refreshing joy that can bless your weary fellow traveler. It reflects the rejoicing soul that remembers he has a Lord in heaven who saved him, who loves him, and who will one day bear him to glory. Timothy George puts it this way:
“Christian joy, however, is lived out in the midst of suffering. Christian joy is marked by celebration and expectation of God’s ultimate victory over the powers of sin and darkness, a victory actualized already in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who ‘for the joy set before him endured the cross’ (Heb 12:2) but now has been exalted to the right hand of the Father whence he will come in power and great glory.”3
Well, that’s the theory. You can study this out more in the Bible, but I think you will find this view of joy is biblical joy. Joy is the manifestation of the rejoicing Spirit through life’s highs and lows, with which you can bless others.
How is your joy, then? Today we are living through times more depressing and defeating than anything I’ve experienced my whole life until now. Think about that. Perhaps you have had some terrible experiences in the past with effects lingering into the present. Perhaps you lost a dear loved one who provided much to you in the past — friendship, leadership, companionship. When you lost that one, you were cut adrift. That’s very painful. Has God enabled you to display joy in the face of those trials?
A few years ago, my dad passed on to heaven. I think about him almost every day, though it is more than a decade ago. Well, the loss was bearable because of the truth of God and the presence of the Spirit. My dad knew the Lord, my dad’s last days of disease and suffering came to its end, and my God granted grace in time of need. Yes, I’ve known the joy of the Lord in a dark hour.
What about this year?
We all know the fear of uncertainty, the frustration of restrictions and government intervention and interference in our lives. We all know the societal division we’ve seen, as one side berates the other side for their selfishness or their ignorance. We’ve seen a lot of anger. Some of us lost loved ones to this very disease. I can’t even begin to catalog it all in this brief paragraph. You know what I am talking about. You’ve lived it along with me. We know the sorrows of Covid-19.
So, do you have the fruit of the Spirit which is joy, this year?
If you don’t have it, what does that tell you?
First, it tells you that your spiritual walk isn’t quite what it ought to be. Perhaps you aren’t quite as close to the Lord as you thought. Perhaps there is still a lot of self that fills your life.
Second, it tells you that you need to find that joy you once had. You need to go back to where you lost it. Maybe you once had a sweet time of communion with the Lord as your daily habit, but things got in the way and you’ve let it slide. Maybe you’ve let the pressures of life crowd out “that better part” that Mary of Bethany found at the feet of Jesus.
Third, I think it tells you that its time to repent of the worldly mind you’ve allowed to grow up in your life. You may be well versed in doctrine, you may have impeccable theology, you may eschew the major expressions of sin (like the works of the flesh, Gal 5.19-21), yet you instead of joy, you’ve depended on self-satisfaction. Instead of the Spirit, you’ve substituted the flesh.
This year needs to be a year of revival for the Christian church.
Actually, it needs to be a year of revival for me. Right now. May God help me, may God help you, to walk close to him, and be full of joy in the year of Covid.
Don Johnson is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.
Photo by Kolby Milton on Unsplash