John 16:16-24
We’re going to be thinking today about the Bible’s declaration that one aspect of the fruit of God’s Spirit is joy. Few human beings would ever think that a life of joy is a bad thing. We all want to be happy, don’t we? But, one of the main things that I want you to take home today is that what the Bible means by joy is quite different from what the world means by joy.
There is probably nothing that makes this point clearer than Jesus using the illustration of a woman going through labor pain as an example of a Christian’s joy. I am fully aware that a huge percentage of us in church today (including me) will never experience giving birth to a child personally. However, I think we can all understand it and gain from it. Jesus was dealing with his disciples’ sorrow after he told them that he would soon leave them by dying in order to prepare a place for all who believe in him in heaven. Jesus said that joy is like this: “A woman giving birth to a baby has pain. That’s because her hour to give birth has come. But when her baby is born, she forgets the pain. She forgets because she is so happy that a baby has been born into the world. That’s the way it is with you… (Jn 16:21-22a).”
I have never given birth to a child but I have been present at the birth of each of my children. When Chris was in labor with Heather, we had attended all the Lamaze classes and I thought I had learned a lot. But, when Chris went into labor, I discovered there is a big difference between classroom learning and the real experience. We were talking together about this last week and both of us thought of the time when a really big labor pain came and out of empathy I got down close to Chris’ face – too close! She put her arm around my neck and got me in a headlock. As her pain grew, her arm-pressure grew. Dealing with the pain seemed to have given her enormous strength. I thought about what our Lamaze teacher had said, “Say, ‘Breathe! Take a deep breath.’” But at that time, I couldn’t breathe. I could only gasp, “Help! I can’t breathe myself!”
A little while later another powerful labor pain came – just after the nurse and doctor had left the room. Chris shouted, “Everybody’s gone. Everybody’s left me!” I said, “No, I’m here.” And she yelled, “But you don’t know anything!”
Jesus said that Christian joy is like that. If so, I for one need to figure out what he meant. So, let’s start.
#1: What Joy Is
Joy is not something that you pursue for its own sake. You don’t usually say, “I want to experience some joy today. I’ll just try to smile and be happy!” Joy doesn’t work that way. You do want to experience joy, of course. But, joy comes when we discover or experience something else that we’ve been looking for or hoping for. So, joy is always connected to something else that you and I long for or something wonderful that we experience. With that in mind, let me propose this definition of joy: Joy is the intense and spontaneous emotional response of great gladness and delight when you have received or achieved something that you have deeply desired or have experienced something wonderful.
In the Bible, joy flows out of a wide range of human experiences—from experiencing sexual love (Solomon’s Song 1:4), to entering into marriage after waiting a long time for it (Pr 5:18), to the birth of a child when a couple has longed for it (Ps 113:9), to soldiers securing a military victory (Isa 9:3), and even to drinking a great wine (Ps 104:15 and the marriage at Cana in John 2).
And if joy is a glad response to experiencing something you have long desired, you might expect joy to fill the Christmas story when the long-awaited Messiah is born. And it does!! The birth of John the Baptist as the forerunner of the Messiah brings joy to his old father (Lk 1:14). The angel's greeting to Mary is a call to rejoice (Lk 1:28). Later, shepherds are told that Jesus will bring great joy for all people (Lk 2:10). The Magi, upon finding the infant Jesus, are "overjoyed” (Mt 2:10).
So, when you experience joy or happiness, it not that you have gone out and looked for it. Joy is the glad satisfaction that we feel when we find what we’ve longed for – when we experience something wonderful.
#2: What Is Different About the Joy of the Spirit
With that understanding of joy, I’m sure you see that all people can experience joy. It’s not only Christians who feel joy when we receive or achieve something or someone we have longed for. But, there is still a difference in the way Jesus talked about joy in Jn 16 from the way the world does. Usually, the joy or happiness the world points toward doesn’t seem to last very long. In particular, the joy our culture talks about doesn’t often survive the pain and suffering of this world.
A few years ago, author Amy Bloom wrote about this in an insightful article entitled The Rap on Happiness. Some schools of psychology don’t like what Bloom wrote because her main point is that happiness is “transient”. In her observations, Bloom had made note of what I said in my first point, i.e., that happiness is built on us having our longings fulfilled and 1) those things once attained do not seem to satisfy fully and 2) even if they provide some satisfaction, they don’t last. They grow old, boring or out of fashion. Bloom said, “Anything you get joy from in this world cannot last.”
I should have learned this many years ago when, in the summer of 1964, I found I could pick up St. Louis radio station KMOX on my radio in West Virginia and I became a St. Louis Cardinals’ fan. No one else in my school was a Cards’ fan and they mocked me. But, I was able to buy a Cards’ hat and I wore it to school everyday. A few of you may know that in 1964, the Cards won the World Series. I was filled euphoric. I was so happy. Every day I wore my baseball cap to school. I used every penny I made mowing lawns buying baseball cards of the St. Louis players and I knew they would win the next year too.
But they didn’t. In fact, the Cardinals fell apart. They had a losing season. In 1965, the World Series was won by… the Dodgers!! When that happened, everyone made fun of me with my St. Louis hat. I was so frustrated and I thought, “Never again. Never again will I give my heart to a baseball team!”
My question to you is this: What do you give your heart to? To winning at fantasy football? To your child getting into law school? What is it that you long for the most? I’m afraid that many people say that Jesus is the Lord of their lives but, in reality, it is success or pleasure or…
As far as I can determine it, the main difference between the world’s joy and Christian joy is the object of our joy, i.e., what it is that we most long for. If our ultimate desire is something that is temporary or based on a circumstance, when that thing is gone or that circumstance deteriorates, then the joy goes away with it.
What Jesus talks about in John 16 is the kind of joy that nothing in this can ever take away -- even suffering and loss. This is a truth that C.S. Lewis wrote about this perhaps more than anyone. In his autobiography, Surprised By Joy, Lewis wrote about how he as a young boy experienced a deep joy inside when he read an Icelandic saga. It’s the kind of unexpected joy many of us have experienced when we hear some music that we love or see a great piece of art or eat a great meal or observe something as magnificent as a lunar eclipse! When we do, we want more and more of that thing that brings us joy.
Lewis began reading every Icelandic story he could find – and eventually even began to read them in their original language. But, he became aware of the fact that his joy in them seemed to diminish. So, he switched his interest to other things that he thought might bring him joy – like a good friendship. He chose a friend and wanted to spend every moment of every day with that friends – until the friend had to say, “Let’s take a break from one another once in a while.”
It was JRR Tolkien who heard Lewis talking about this and said to him that the things that bring us joy may not be the ultimate things in this world meant to bring us lasting joy. Tolkien said something like this: What if those things you enjoy so much are signposts pointing to their Maker, i.e., to the one who created them and gave them to you out of love. Lewis, he said, lasting joy is not to be found in the gift but in knowing and loving the Giver of the gift. Lewis spoke of this in The Weight of Glory:
The things in this world that we think bring joy “will betray us if we trust in them. But it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things… are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”
This is why a Christian and non-Christian alike can find joy in the good things in this world. James 1 tells us that every good gift comes from our Heavenly Father. However, the good things are not the ultimate things. The gifts God gives only point to how good God is. If we live for those things he gives out of his love, they will let us down every time. But, if we know God and that he loves us with an everlasting love, then we know that what he is after in our lives is a lasting joy. So, as Paul put it in Phil 4, when we abound with things, we rejoice for we know God is blessing us. But, when we lack things, we rejoice because we know God is doing something for our good – even when don’t understand what he’s doing at the time.
This is what Jesus is getting at in Jn 16. He was going to die and the disciples couldn’t make any sense out of it. It was painful for them. But, he asked them to trust him because he was doing something more wonderful than they could imagine – and it would take this kind of suffering to bring it about. This is the reason why true followers of Jesus can have joy in the midst of pain and loss – because we find our joy ultimately in God and we trust him. Do you know him? Do you know Jesus died and bore the punishment for your sin on the cross? Do you also know that Jesus personally found joy in the midst of this great agony because he knew where his suffering would lead? Let me show you two verses now that I show you often:
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart (Heb 12:2-3).
Let me ask you: Who is it that brought such delight to Jesus that, even when he went through unimaginable pain, he found joy in it. Who brought him the joy? What brought joy to Jesus was what His Father was going to do in you because of Jesus’ death. Jesus finds our redemption and remaking so beautiful that he finds joy – in in the midst of suffering. The world’s joy is nothing like that.
How Joy Grows in Us
Let me remind you that this series is about the “Fruit of God’s Spirit.” Each message we will hear will be a reminder that the life God will produce in us is beautiful but that he must do the work in us. Getting a set of rules telling us that we must do this or that – or refrain from doing this or that – will not produce the fruit of the Spirit. And our own human initiative won’t do it either. Therefore, hear this: Christian Joy Is Not an Act of Will-Power.You can decide to do things that may bring you joy — spend a day at the beach, visit a friend, read a great book — but the lasting fruit of joy doesn’t come that way.
And, hear this too: Christian Joy Is Not Natural but Spiritual. This distinguishes Christian joy from all other joys. Pride is natural to us. Envy is natural to us. And so it is with jealousy and anger and strife and self-pity and selfishness. These all come from the inner spirit of us as flawed people. Paul calls them the works of the flesh. It takes no special, supernatural work of the Holy Spirit are needed to produce them. We produce these things by our own nature.
The fruit of joy is the work of God’s Spirit. John Piper tells us how we experience this as believers:
First, there is the love of God, which chooses us and calls us and makes us right with God and guarantees for us a share in the glory of God. Then, there is the work of the Holy Spirit who pours the love of God into our hearts so that we recognize it and cherish it. Then, out of this deep experience of the love of God grows an unshakable hope even in the midst of suffering. And, in this hope we find joy – unquenchable joy.”
But, we can open our hearts to the Spirit’s work. For that, I’ll suggest a few things that might help you be the kind of fertile soil in which the seed of God’s joy will grow without restraint:
- Let joy begin with your weekly worship. Here, I’m speaking about you coming to church each week to be with your church family and together with our Heavenly Father. Prepare to come each week by praying before you come to church, “Lord, I want to join my voice in praise to you with young and old, with rich and poor. Lord, my deepest joy is not just in music that I’m drawn to but in you. So, help me to be ready to exalt you, to listen to your Word, and to rejoice with my church family.” Get here on time – even early. I recommend reading a Psalm like Ps 63:
Oh God, you are my God. I seek you. My soul thirsts for you today…
I look upon you in this sanctuary as I contemplate your power and glory.
Your steadfast love is better than life so my lips will praise you.
I will bless you a long as I live so I now lift my hands and call upon your name….
You have been my help. In the shadow of your wings I sing for joy!
- Make a list of the things that bring you the most joy in this world. Thank God for them if he is providing them now. But then ask whether those things have become idols. Have they become so important to you that you simply cannot have joy without them? Ask God to work in your heart through his Spirit that you will find joy each day in him – whether you have or experience those things or not.
- Change the way you start each day. Start tomorrow. If you begin each day with a focus on God’s presence and reflecting on his love, it will change everything. Spend some quiet and undisturbed time at the very beginning of each day thanking God for the pleasure and gifts he gives you – both great and small. Then surrender the challenges to him too and acknowledge he is wise and is greater than those things. Tell him you trust him. Find your joy in him.
And all this brings us to the joy we have today in dedicating the Maple Street facility…