More Joy Series

Robert Dean in the Homan Illustrated Bible Dictionary defines joy as

A State of delight and well being that results from knowing and serving God.

A number of Greek and Hebrew words are used to convey the ideas of joy and rejoicing. We have the same situation in English with such nearly synonymous words as joy, happiness, pleasure, delight, gladness, merriment, felicity, and enjoyment.

The words “joy” and “rejoice” are the words used most often to translate the Hebrew and Greek words into English. Joy is found over 150 times in the Bible. If such words as “joyous” and “joyful” are included, the number comes to over 200. The verb “rejoice” appears well over 200 times.

Robert J. Dean, “Joy,” ed. Chad Brand et al., Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003), 956.

That is more than 400 times that joy is mentioned in the Bible…

No wonder as humans we are constantly focused on Joy or our lack of it…

“Joy is not a season, it’s a way of living.”

Romans 14:17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,

Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”

One easy way to feel miserable on your walk with Christ is to allow your joy to come from your performance.

There have been seasons when my joy was coming from my performance as a believer and I felt awful and defeated.

I was hard on myself for everything. When your joy is coming from anything other than Christ that is idolatry.

One moment you think you are saved, the next moment you question your salvation. One day you think you are deeply loved by God and the next day you feel that God loves you less because you didn’t read your Bible or pray.

Philippians 3:1-3 Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. 2 Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. 3 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh

“Joy is not necessarily the absence of suffering, it is the presence of God.”

Often we find ourselves blaming God for our suffering and therefore it robs us of our Joy.

Margaret Sangster Phippen wrote that in the mid-1950’s her father, British minister W.E. Sangster, began to notice some uneasiness in his throat and a dragging in his leg. When he went to the doctor, he found that he had an incurable disease that cased progressive muscular atrophy. His muscles would gradually waste away, his voice would fail, and his throat would soon become unable to swallow.

Sangster threw himself into his work in the British home missions, figuring he could still write and he would have even more time for prayer.

"Let me stay in the struggle Lord," he pleaded. "I don’t mind if I can no longer be a general, but give me just a regiment to lead." He wrote articles and books, and helped organize prayer cells throughout England. "I’m only in the kindergarten of suffering," he told people who pitied him. Gradually Sangsters’s legs became useless. His voice went completely. But he could still hold a pen, shakily.

On Easter morning, just a few weeks before he died, he wrote a letter to his daughter. In it, he said, "It is terrible to wake up on Easter morning and have no voice to shout, "He is risen!" -- but it would be still more terrible to have a voice and not want to shout."

Suffering is not a pleasant event in our lives but it is something that ALL people face at different times and in different degrees.

Where is your joy coming from?

Where do you seek to get your joy from? If you can be honest, what do you run to the most? How are you feeding your mind?

From personal experience I can tell you that when my devotional life is healthy I experience more joy.

When I get too consumed by TV or secular music I begin to feel empty.

We were made for Christ and while some things are not inherently bad, too much of those things can take our heart away from Christ.

Pic Think of it like Styrofoam Cup that is made to put liquid in like the ones we put coffee in…

If we fill it up with good stuff it works great and we can even go back and refill it over and over…