AUDIO
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Archbishop Peter Jensen's Christmas Message 2011 on the centrality of Jesus to human history
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Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. (Philippians 4:4)
I have spent some years struggling to understand the concept of “joy”. When I consider the teaching I’ve heard on this subject, the main thing that stands out is a slogan - “Joy is not the same thing as happiness!” Is this correct?
I’ve searched the Scriptures, and I’ve found that joy is associated with singing and gladness and feasting and celebration. It is contrasted with weeping and grief. So it seems to me that joy is very similar to happiness - indeed, we could almost say that it is a special type of Christian happiness.
Everyone wants to be happy, and many people aren’t, including many Christians. Clearly this elusive “joy” is a very desirable thing. So how do we obtain it - especially in a world that is riven through with suffering? I’ve heard Christians respond in three ways -
Joy instead of suffering
This idea, prevalent in some pentecostal circles, says that it is never God’s intention for his children to suffer, even in this present dark age. Suffering is the opposite of joy, so we achieve joy by eliminating suffering from our lives - usually through prayer, faith and other devotional activities.
Joy after suffering
This idea, common in some conservative churches, essentially says that misery is the lot of man in this world. If we are happy, it is only by accident, and it probably means we are doing something wrong! We shouldn’t expect any real happiness until after we die. In the mean time, we just have to persevere.
Joy in spite of suffering
This idea, promoted very strongly by John Piper, says that joy is available to all Christians in this life in spite of the difficulties we experience. Indeed, Christians are actually commanded to rejoice - it is not an optional extra. I believe that this approach is the most Scriptural.
So how do we accomplish this joy, this happiness, when our world and our lives are so often marked by pain? The short answer is this - by having a heart that truly desires God, that delights in Him, and that sees Him as the greatest good in this life. Such a heart will find joy in the most trying of circumstances - not because your suffering is somehow lessened, but because your vision of God is so much greater than your present trials.
That’s the short answer. The long answer is a lifelong journey of faith - of taming evil desires, casting off idols, and clinging to God as the highest good in all things. I cannot say that I have traveled very far on this journey, but I believe I have taken a few faltering steps along the path to joy. Have you done the same? After all, God has commanded it.
I've also thought about this lots and wondered how you get it!
But every time I've heard a sermon on 'Joy' it's this message of my heart truly desiring God, that really resonates with me and reminds me to keep going forward in my walk with God and to give my whole heart to him.
Nothing else here can give us that feeling of joy.
It is the fruit of the Spirit.
Joy means we can suffer without cursing God, eg Job and Jesus.
For those in Christ, joy is a response to understanding the grace of God in saving us through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
(1Peter 1)
We have this joy of the Spirit even in trial.
Di
Are you saying that all Christians already have joy - whether they know it or not?
If we know how utterly rotten to the core we are before God and how dreadful this is, and how Christ died so that we could be forgiven, then it is hard to imagine such a person, knowing this love of their heavenly Father, would not know joy.
Romans 5 is a great reminder of our reasons for joy:
Knowing we are justified, we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.(v2)
We rejoice in our sufferings knowing suffering produces a certain hope. (v3)
And we rejoice in God who has reconciled us to Him. (v11)
The Spirit of Christ is producing joy in us and we are to keep in step with this Spirit.
It really is all quite radical and different to any 'joy' this world offers. There is not a denial of suffering or a belief that it is all accidental. I found myself speaking rubbish in regards to suffering this week - 'that's just the way the world is...'. I was wrong to say this to someone. We know God is lovingly at work for our good always, even in difficulty.
Craig, thanks for getting us to think on this matter.
Di
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Romans 5
But I have really enjoyed talks Andrew Laird has given in the past on 'Joy' at Christians in the Media. They may still be on the website if anyone wants to listen to them.
So far so good.
Where we come unstuck, it seems to me, is that we continue to preach 'intellectual primacy.' That is to say we believe that we are transformed primarily by the renewal of our minds (ala Romans 12:2), so we tell people to first 'know rightly' and that one day they will somehow 'feeling rightly' too. This is both biblically unsound and pastorally catastrophic, because the result is (as I have said before - spot the hobby-horse) endorsed hypocrisy.
The biblical reality is that spiritual transformation, as far as heart and mind is concerned, is not either/or but both/and. We need, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to know as Christ knows and to feel as Christ feels.
...
But ecclesiologically? I think that if we SydAngs are to see any success against our spiritual/emotional malaise, we need to call bollocks on intellectual primacy and start encouraging genuine spiritual formation.
Weep with those who weep.
''I think that if we SydAngs are to see any success against our spiritual/emotional malaise, we need to call bollocks on intellectual primacy and start encouraging genuine spiritual formation.
After a quite thorough explanation of the doctrine of salvation in the letter to the Romans, Paul exhorts those in Christ, in response to such truths, to be obedient and to be transformed by the renewing of their minds.
Romans 12
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Di
To read Romans 12:2 as supporting intellectual primacy is reductionistic (ie. improperly reducing complex systems to simple ones by appealing to selective evidence). This too is, in my humble opinion, a problem rife amongst SydAng preachers. On the same methodology, one could argue that 1 Cor.14:33-36 prohibits women from ever participating vocally in church services. Which would totally ignore what Paul says in 1 Cor.11 about women prophesying and praying in appropriate ways. Don Carson makes short work of this type of biblical study in his excellent “Exegetical Fallacies†p.93-94 (from which I draw this example).
For a helpful (albeit short) overview of the (strong) biblical evidence against intellectual primacy, I would recommend John Frame’s essay titled Hurting People’s Feelings. The subject of the essay is a little different, but he covers the right ground. If you want more, his book Doctrine of the Knowledge of God has extensive treatment of the subject.
Braden.
I was arguing for the need to address the minds of people with the word of God, which is the sword of the Spirit.
Just to help me understand you a little further could you explain how you would go about ‘encouraging genuine spiritual formation’? What do you mean by this?
thanks Di
I think it means addressing the "hearts" of people (if I can use that unhelpfully neoplatonic distinction) with the word of God too. In other words:
1. When we speak of sin, we look at what the bible says about emotional fallenness as well as the traditional forumation of "thought, word and deed."
2. When we speak of the righteous requirement of God, we speak (as Jesus does) of loving with the whole of our beings ("heart, soul, mind and strength") not merely of living out a functional obedience.
3. When we speak of the need for redemption, we make it clear that we need more than new minds - we need regenerate hearts as well (there again the stupid unbiblical distinction - but it would be a little confusing without so I press on)
4. When we speak of justification, we be sure to show that Jesus died not only because we think wrongly and behave wrongly, but because we feel wrongly too - and he did it so that before the judgement throne of God these might all be washed away, once for all.
4. So perhaps most importantly, when we speak of sanctification, we clearly communicate that this is a gracious work of God that must renew every part of our lives. That we ought to walk in step with the spirit, not only in thinking right things but in learning to respond as God responds. That Christ died and gives us his Spirit that we might never behave sinfully again, and he died and gives us his Spirit that we might never respond with emotional sin again either.
Does that make it clear, Di?
What do you mean?
Yes I agree that all aspects of our natures are depraved and so all need to be renewed by the Spirit of Christ.
We do need to respond to the mercies of God with all our being – our hearts, minds, souls, will.
What can easily be relegated to unimportance is the place of thinking in the process. God speaks by words and so we are to listen with our minds (thinking). That is not a denial of emotions or heart or whatever…
In regards to emotions, they are God given, humanly flawed and to be controlled as part of our sanctification. Self-control is the fruit of the Spirit.
God speaks to us in words and we are to listen and understand those words and respond with obedience of faith. In this statement there is no denial of emotional aspects.
Emotions will glorify God when they are in submission to the word of God, which needs to be first known.
Di
It comes from belonging to a community with something in common - even if that something in common is being undervalued by society at large.
You get joy from about being surrounded by acceptance, tolerance, love, respect, optimism, flexibility and patience. More heart than head.
Have you read Jeremy Halcrow's story 'Anglicare forced to close Kingsdene"? To the right of it is Sharon Power's account of her journey towards joy. Can you imagine thinking you were nearing the end of your journey and then you discover the destination has vanished?
I agree with you about Kingsdene. My lament of the loss of $160million last year was that we didn't willingly "lose" it in helping children (& their families) like those who are left in Kingsdene.
As I said to the former CEO of Anglicare when the first closure was announced & he told me that the decision had to be made, I said that knowing him, that decision would have been the hardest he had to make in his life. There was no joy in it.
However, joy does come from sharing as well. But it is not the only thing. "Make my joy complete" occurs a few times in the Scriptures. Check these out: John 3:29 (seeing Jesus); 15:11 (obedience); 16:24 (receiving answers from prayer); Philippians 2:2 (unity from like-mindedness); 1 John 1:4 (fellowship with God and his people); 2 John 12 (fellowship with God's people).
I do not think we can say joy comes from this one thing or that. It is as some have said, a consequence of faithfully being in Christ. I do know that when my third grandchild died in his mother's wombin the middle of the pregnancy, that though we were grieving, yet we felt the surprising joy of the Lord sustaining us, based on the promises, bonded in the fellowship, and borne out in this world's pain and suffering.
Rejoice!