DAY 3: HOW DO WE EXPERIENCE JOY?
We like to say this on Sunday mornings, but I figured we would say it again here this morning: I know there are other things you could be doing this morning, or afternoon, or evening, or whenever you happen to be reading this, and I want you to know I’m genuinely grateful that you’re taking a few minutes out of your day to dig a little deeper into the topic of joy with me. Today we’re going to talk for a few minutes about just three things that will help us experience joy. And while they’re not necessarily boxes that you can check on your to—do list, I hope they will practically help you to point your heart and mind in the right direction for finding joy.
GOD
This is obviously the short answer to the question of how we experience joy. We’ve already established over the last couple of days that God is both the source of our joy and the object of our joyful response to what he’s done. But we maybe should simply acknowledge that God actually WANTS to bring joy to us. For many of us the idea of a joy-bringing God might feel foreign. You may have grown up in the kind of church environment that seemed to confirm your suspicions that God was, in fact, out to make sure you never experienced anything that would remotely resemble joy. He was there to make sure you experienced misery, with a hefty side of guilt.
But in one of the benedictions found in Paul’s letter to the Roman church, he makes clear that this is not the kind of God we are in relationship with. His prayer expresses this beautifully: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Paul’s prays that the God who gives hope to us would then fill us with the kind of joy and peace that comes from believing in him. We experience joy when we allow ourselves to hope in the God who gives us hope – a hope that is sustained by belief and results in our joy. This whole process is empowered by the Holy Spirit who is at work in us, changing and transforming us daily.
PRESENCE
Part of the Holy Spirit’s work in us is to allow us to enjoy the awareness that we find ourselves in the presence of God. In the Old Testament era, the presence of God was confined to the Tabernacle first, and then later to the Temple. But in the New Testament world, where the Temple has become obsolete and has been replaced by the indwelling gift of the Holy Spirit, we get the privilege of spending time in the presence of God on a continual basis.
In Psalms 16:11, David writes: “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” David seems to understand that understanding how to live – the path to life – is connected with our deep joy, and that the place we begin to understand how to live is in the presence of God. When we spend time there, whether in solitude for prayer and reading the Scriptures, or in worship together with the rest of God’s people, we become more fully aware of the path that leads to life. That path to the kind of life God wants us to live will lead to the fullness of joy that comes in his presence. We tend to rush past these moments, but I think God is inviting us to stay there, maybe even to linger for a while longer in his presence where our life and its issues are being reframed.
OBEDIENCE
Obedience is not usually a word that we associate with joy because it usually feels like an obligation and duty to us. I’d love to tell you that obedience never feels like obligation or a burden, but that would be optimistic to the point of foolishness. But in Matthew 11 Jesus tells the people following him that if they are feeling burdened and weighed down, they should come to him and he would give them rest. Then he makes this incredible statement about what it’s like to follow him – it is like putting yourself into a yoke next to him and walking with him, learning from him, and finding that in learning from him, his yoke is easy on our necks and the burden we bear becomes lighter with him. It is certainly constraining to obey him, but it is also incredibly freeing.
Yesterday we looked at parts of the passage in John 14-17 where Jesus talks to his disciples about their joy. In John 15:10-11 he says, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” Our joy, our full and abundant joy, is directly connected to our obedience to Jesus’ commands. If we keep his commands as he kept the commands of the Father then we will abide in God’s love. And the reason he gave us these commands is that he wants us to experience joy. His purpose in telling us to love one another, and to deny ourselves, and to live selflessly is that we would find joy in our obedience to him. We imagine that we are most joyful when we ignore commands, but he knows better, and if we were to think about it, we probably know better too. Many times what looks like joy in a moment turns out to be nothing more than happiness that fades when the moment has passed.
REFLECTION QUESTION:
When or where are you most aware of God’s presence and the joy that brings?
Church Notes 