Years ago I spent the last four months of seminary in the Clinical Pastoral Education program or CPE as a chaplain on the third floor of Central Baptist Hospital. It was a great experience, but not one that suited me too well. I was assigned to the respiratory ward where people were mostly dying of black lung, emphysema, and lung cancer. That took a toll on me as did the weekends of serving as the chaplain on call and ministering to families in the ER after accidents. In those situations you are face-to-face with life as it really is sometimes. There isn’t much pretending in the ER or at the bed of a person as they take their last breaths. And it wears on you. It becomes too real.
At first it was exciting but then it begins to get to you. But we learned two tricks that helped us cope. First – we never went through the pediatrics ward. It was just too close to home for those of us who had kids ourselves to see little ones fighting for their lives. But we did visit the maternity ward on a regular basis. That would get you leveled out – to see people pressed up against the windows –looking at the baby. A few minutes there and things were ok again and we could go back to the rest of the hospital. But there with the babies – there was joy. There was this deep sense of wellness – of observing something that was pure and good and completely beyond our comprehension or power.
The toughest guys cry when they hold their son or daughter for the first time. No one says “I did this. You can thank me. I made this happen.” Everyone is taken by the mystery and the miracle of birth. There is joy – not just happiness – but joy – deep – transcendent – slippery – you can’t get words around it. It is joy unspeakable and full of glory.
I remember a young couple whose story wasn’t as they had dreamed. The baby was way premature and was fighting for life and it was tough. They had to sit by the incubator. That little three pounder all taped up and strapped down --- hoses and tubes. He looked so small and helpless. And the father said “We are just thankful for every day.” There was no sadness or bitterness.
That is joy. It is deep and sometimes unexplainable and often has little to do with the circumstances of life.
That is our topic for this day. And I want you to ask yourself, “When was the last time I saw joy?” Can you remember? It might have been a birth, or a death, or a graduation, or some other event where God’s joy just flowed through you and gushed out for others to see.
Joy is the state of delight and well being that results from knowing God.
It is second in the list of the fruit of the Spirit as given to us by Paul. Last week we began with love and we also spoke about the fruit of the Spirit are a result of walking with Jesus Christ – of abiding in Him. The Spirit produces fruit in our lives. We don’t produce them. It’s not about discipline. It’s not about giving stuff up. It is about connecting with Jesus. And we read that passage from John 15 where Jesus tells us to stay connected – to abide – to center our lives around him and then he promised that if we do, he will produce fruit in our lives and he also warns that apart from him we cannot do anything.
And Paul lists out nine attributes or virtues that God will develop in us if we walk in the Spirit.
Galatians 5:22–23 (NLT) (read together)
22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
And we might hear these and think – I really need to get to work and try to be more loving and more joyful and find peace. I want to stop you right there and make the point that if we do that it will not work. The list is not a test. Paul is not saying – You should be more loving. You should have more joy. We are not the recipients of the fruit of the Spirit. The world enjoys the fruit as God grows them in us for others. God wants them to flow through us – and I think the verb “flow” works so well for joy, because joy is dynamic, it is often difficult to understand, can never be faked or imitated - -but arises in all circumstances.
Happiness and Joy are not the same
Psychologists and neuroscientists have done all kinds of research into the anatomy of joy. They’ve mapped the pleasure centers in the brain; they’ve isolated “joy genes” in our DNA; they’ve identified the chemicals that stimulate pleasurable feelings; they’ve studied identical twins in order to explore environmental factors. I read one bit of research that actually involved tickling rats in order to understand the physiology of laughter. (Can a rat laugh?) There’s something to be learned from all these disciplines—there are physiological factors, psychological forces, and environmental influences that affect a person’s happiness. But the bottom line is that there’s still a mystery about where joy comes from.
Scientists know where it doesn’t come from. Numerous studies over many years have determined that joy is not linked to circumstances. Money, success, status, age, gender, ethnicity, even physical health doesn’t have any significant correlation to joy. What it is linked to, most often, is relationships. Research has discovered that experiences of joy almost always involve a real or perceived relationship with someone or something.
And that is one of the main distinctions between happiness and joy. Happiness is a result of material prosperity and pleasure. Joy has nothing to do with money or pleasure.
Oprah Moment. Oprah gives you a car. You are happy. Someone just gave you happiness. Someone bought you happiness.
But someone just keyed all your cars. Now not so happy. Once the thing is gone, the happiness is gone.
Happiness is from something that we do. It happens to you. There is a cause and effect. It is external. We can see it. We know where it came from (my new car).
Joy is from something God does. Joy is produced in you. You never own it. It is not about what is outside – but inside.
Happiness is insecure. Once what we have done or been given is gone, it is gone. So when we are happy – we often are very fearful. We are afraid of losing this thing that made me happy.
Can we own that? How many of us have never really been sick? Now – how many of us are afraid that any day we will get sick? We have something to lose. If you have never been poor and you have a lot of stuff – aren’t you afraid of losing it all? See – it is always changing – happiness. There is always more and we can’t hold on to it.
There are always new things. Remember your first computer? You were happy. I bought my first Mac in 1982. I was high on happiness. It was more than anything I had ever imagined. But soon it was outdated. Something was invented that made my little floppy disc drive obsolete. It was a hard drive. Imagine, loading a program without swapping discs. Some of you have no idea what I am talking about. And every computer I have owned in the last thirty years has given me happiness and then disappointment as it became old and the happy face faded. Now it is ipads and it just keeps changing and happiness just wastes away because it is always changing.
See – there is an insecurity that comes with happiness that is not present in joy. Joy is secure. We are not worried about losing our joy, because it isn’t ours. It comes from God. God doesn’t change. Joy is not insecure. Joy is confident - - because it comes from God and we can’t have joy unless we trust God. Our confidence comes from God.
But much of what is sought after in life is a matter of happiness. And happiness can keep us from seeking God and the joy that comes from him.
Do you remember when your mother used to say, "Don't eat candy before meals?" Why did she say that? Because she knew it would ruin your next meal. The trouble with eating candy is that it gives you a sugar buzz, and then you don't feel hungry. Candy masks the fact that your body needs proteins and vitamins. The sugar buzz from candy masks your hunger for the real nutrients that you don't have.
Things like sex, power, money, and success—as well as favorable circumstances—act like spiritual sugar. Christians who have these spiritual candies may say, "Sure, I believe in God and I know I'm going to heaven," but they're actually basing their day-to-day joy on favorable circumstances – on happiness. When the circumstances change, hopefully it drives us to God, because when the sugar disappears, when the candy gets taken away, we're forced to pursue the nutrients that our souls really crave. Happiness is not joy.
Malcolm Muggeridge said, “I can say that I never knew what joy was until I gave up pursuing happiness, or cared to live until I chose to die. For these two discoveries I am beholden to Jesus.” (—Malcolm Muggeridge, British journalist, writer, and Christian apologist (1903–1990))
As long as we pursue happiness – we cannot receive the fruit of joy that God wants to grow in our lives by the Holy Spirit. It is like eating candy before the meal. We will never grow.
That is why joy is never associated with just favorable circumstances in life. Joy – this deep sense of well-being – has nothing to do with money, or health, or external circumstances. Those things can’t touch joy – because joy comes from God – not from things. And there are so many instances in the Bible of men and women who were filled with joy in the midst of terrible situations. And you read these stories and it is evident that they have a power flowing through them that is extraordinary.
Test of Authentic Joy is compatibility with pain. We know that pain and happiness do not go together – but joy – this deep sense of wellness and delight that comes from God – actually is very compatible with pain and suffering.
When Paul and Silas were in Philippi they just had a few converts to the faith when the city turned on them because Paul cast out the spirit that was in a young girl that allowed her to tell the future. She was a real gold mine for her owners. She had her own psychic network set up there in Philippi and her handlers were getting rich – until Paul and Silas told the spirit of divination to leave in the name of Jesus – and it did – and then they were in trouble. They had cost those guys – so they complained and Paul and Silas were thrown in jail.
Acts 16:25–30 (NLT)
25 Around midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening. 26 Suddenly, there was a massive earthquake, and the prison was shaken to its foundations. All the doors immediately flew open, and the chains of every prisoner fell off! 27 The jailer woke up to see the prison doors wide open. He assumed the prisoners had escaped, so he drew his sword to kill himself. 28 But Paul shouted to him, “Stop! Don’t kill yourself! We are all here!” 29 The jailer called for lights and ran to the dungeon and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 Then he brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
Now that is a great story. You really should go home and read more. The Jailer gets saved and his family too and a church starts there that is made up of the Jailer and his family, the once demon possessed girl, and a rich lady named Lydia.
Joy is compatible with pain.
But you know Paul spent 1/3 of his time in the slammer. And it wasn’t like today. There were no civil rights. Historians say that every person thrown in prison was first stripped, beaten with whips and then chained to the wall. I cannot imagine an unhappier evening. You are pretty much alone, a long ways from home, a Christian-Jew in Gentile territory, you try to help a young girl and no good turn go unpunished – they strip you, beat you, and chain you to the wall. And what do you do with that?
Well – we are people of faith – so we pray and we ask God to strike our enemies dead – to bring us justice. No – they have a hymn sing. It is midnight and they are singing and the rest of the prisoners are going “These guys are not like us. Silas is a little weak on his harmony – Paul is slightly flat -- but they are singing to God. They are praising God. What have they got that we don’t have?”
Joy. They have a state of delight and well- being as a result of knowing God. They weren’t worried. They were not afraid of losing their happiness. They had no happiness. They didn’t need it. They had joy – joy that just gushed out of them into that dungeon that night. Paul and Silas didn’t say – “Okay – lets make the best of this. What can we do that will get attention and get us noticed. I know – lets act like this doesn’t bother us.” No – it is all joy. Our circumstances have changed - -but God has not changed – and if God threw us in here – it has to be good.”
Here is something we do not expect – that joy and suffering go together.
Paul and Silas’s witness is not unusual at all. Joy is a mark of God’s power in this world.
James 1:2–4 (NLT)
2 Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. 3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.
I like that idea of needing nothing. Suffering is an opportunity for great joy. I doubt if we look at it that way. And James and the other apostles aren’t just spinning this – you know – making lemonade out of lemons. They experienced joy in the middle of great suffering. They needed nothing. And there is no doubt that the joy of the Lord was their strength. We see that in the days and stories of devastation and suffering. Survivors stand in the rubble where their houses once were and give thanks to God. How do they do that? God. They have a joy that cannot be shaken, but actually becomes stronger in pain.
Richard Stearns, the president of World Vision, reflected on his visit to a church in Port-au-Prince, Haiti nearly a year after the devastating earthquake. The church's building consisted of a tent made from white tarps and duct tape, pitched in the midst of a sprawling camp for thousands of people still homeless from the earthquake. This is how he describes the church and the lesson he learned in Haiti:
In the front row sat six amputees ranging in age from 6 to 60. They were clapping and smiling as they sang song after song and lifted their prayers to God. The worship was full of hope … [and] with thanksgiving to the Lord.
No one was singing louder or praying more fervently than Demosi Louphine, a 32-year-old unemployed single mother of two. During the earthquake, a collapsed building crushed her right arm and left leg. After four days both limbs had to be amputated.
She was leading the choir, leading prayers, standing on her prosthesis and lifting her one hand high in praise to God .… Following the service, I met Demosi's two daughters, ages eight and ten. The three of them now live in a tent five feet tall and perhaps eight feet wide. Despite losing her job, her home, and two limbs, she is deeply grateful because God spared her life on January 12th last year … "He brought me back like Lazarus, giving me the gift of life," says Demosi … [who] believes she survived the devastating quake for two reasons: to raise her girls and to serve her Lord for a few more years.
(Richard Stearns, "Suffering and Rejoicing in a Haitian Tent Camp," Christianitytoday.com (1-12-11))
That is joy. And it comes from God. And it can be yours, if you seek the Lord with all your heart.
