The Power of Joy – Part 3
A Joy That Is Full
Scripture: Second Corinthians 6:10; 1 John 1:1-4; John 5:19, 39
Last week a program was aired about the race riots that took place in my hometown of Columbia, Tennessee 75 years ago. The book, “No More Social Lynchings” by Robert Ikard also detailed the events of the riot and the roles played by the individuals involved. As a child growing up, we would hear bits and pieces of information about the riots and we knew that we had family members who were very much involved. So, as I watched the program, I experienced the emotions that one should expect to feel as I viewed life for Black Americans in a southern town before the civil rights movement – disgust, anger and a feeling of helplessness. But the program also contained, at least for me personally, a very strong, positive and uplifting component. I mentioned earlier that I had family who were very much involved in the riots. My grandfather and his brother, who were both carpenters and Baptist ministers, heard about the mounting crisis at the beginning of the riots from their brother Albert. This caused alarm for them because my Great-Uncle Calvin’s wife was the first cousin of a man who had been lynched in 1933 and had vowed there would never be another lynching in Maury County as long as he lived. Their involvement, initially and throughout the ordeal, were as men of faith whose primary goal was to bring an end to the rioting. They had sought common ground between the leaders in the black community and the white civic leaders that would put an end to the violent confrontations that led to destruction of property, primarily in the black community. However, this changed when they were arrested as they attempted to rescue their nephew from the hot zone after a shooting. They would be charged with twenty-three other men of attempted murder. They were charged with 23 other men with attempted murder. While they were acquitted after more than a year in jail, it took a lot of people like Thurgood Marshall who represented them on behalf of the NAACP and the former First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt who worked to raise money for their defense, working on their behalf. The title of the program, “Reconciliation to Revitalization: The 75th Anniversary of the Columbia Race Riots” I believe, recognizes their roles as reconcilers throughout the ordeal.
Now, let me tell you why I am beginning today’s message with this part of my family history. As I was growing up, each one of my brothers and sisters understood the name Lockridge was held in regards by the folks in the black community and also by many whites. My grandfather was John Raymond Lockridge and my great uncle was Calvin Lockridge. Whenever we would hear bits and pieces of the story, it always gave us a sense of pride to know that we had family who played a pivotal role in paving the way for the life we were living at the time. And the people in the community knew that we were “Lockridges,” not Johnsons, but Lockridges. While the recognition made us smile, it was also a reminder of what my grandfather and great uncle had done for the black community. To this day, the Lockridge name is still known and respected and when I think about that, I think about how blessed and happy I am to be a descendant of two men who played a role in laying the foundation for the Columbia, Tennessee that we see today. I understand the personal stake my grandfather and great uncle had in the riots. My Aunt Faye (my grand-father’s daughter) told me that my grand-father did not like beans or bologna sandwiches as a result of being in jail for a year after the riot because this is primarily what they were served. My grand-father and great-uncle could have easily left the jail as bitter men who hated whites, but that was not the Spirit that lived within them. They were able to maintain their joy and had an eternal security and peace in that dreadful situation. They understood whose they were and they did not walk away from believing God’s Word even though, like so many, they could have easily done so. Their arrest impacted their family who suffered because of their lack of income, but the community rallied around them. This morning I want to you ask yourself, if you had been falsely jailed for over a year and forced to eat beans and bologna sandwiches, day in and day out, could you maintain your joy?
What I have just shared with you so far this morning is similar to what God did for us through His Son Jesus. What do I mean? Everything Jesus did – how He lived as a son of God and the sacrifices He was willing to make for us and our eternal futures – are reasons for us to have joy. What Jesus did in the past paved the way for the lives we can live today through Him and the eternity future we have because of Him. It’s similar to what my grandfather and great uncle did so that we could have a happier childhood in Columbia. And like Jesus, what they did before I was born paved the way for the type of childhood I would have later. As I thought about this and the two-part message on “The Power of Joy,” a passage came to mind that showed me another aspect of joy from God’s perspective.
I am concluding my series “The Power of Joy” with this message subtitled “A Joy That Is Full.” Remember in part one when I told you that when you have joy it is evident regardless of the circumstances you are facing? Before I get into the heart of the message on a joy that’s full, I want to look at one verse about how we can have joy even in the midst of sorrow because when you have joy in sorrow, truly your joy is full. Second Corinthians 6:10 says, “As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.” Paul wrote “As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing….” He says “My heart may be heavy with sadness or grief because of the situations and circumstances I face, but I will always rejoice.” Do you know why Paul had this attitude? He tells us in the latter part of the verse: “yet possessing all things.” In a word – what Paul possessed was the joy of the Lord. If he didn’t have the joy it would have been impossible for him to rejoice. It would have been impossible for him to endure the sorrows. New Light, this should be a great comfort to us. Our circumstances do not determine how we can rest knowing that God has given to us, as a possession, His joy.
This morning we’re going to see that God has written things in the Bible that is the foundation for us living a life that can be full of joy – the same joy Paul wrote about in Second Corinthians 6:10. Some of us may not be full of joy yet, and I admit this applies to me, but we’re going to see that such a life is possible. We’re going to begin with the first four verses in First John chapter one. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life – 2the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested in us – 3that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.” John says the things that the apostles witnessed firsthand during the three and half years that they spent with Jesus – those same things he will share with us so that we can have fellowship with both the Father and with Jesus. New Light, when we have fellowship with these two members of the Godhead, it means that we have the opportunity to share fully in the promises they have planned for us from before the foundation of the world. I want you to hear what John says will be the end result of our fellowship, of our sharing fully in the things the Father and Son have promised. Verse 4 says, “And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.”
John says that our fellowship with the Father and His Son will cause our joy to be full. New Light, this tells me that we can have joy that is not static. We can have a lot more joy than we are experiencing right now. We can have joy that breaks forth in us to the point that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are more real to us than at any other time in our lives. And when that happens, what we read about Jesus doing in the four gospels will be the same things that people will see us doing today. John says the Godhead wants our joy to be full. In the Greek, the word “full” is pleroo (play-ro-o). It means “to cram full, no more can be added.” That is the type of joy that God desires for us. He wants us to have every single ounce of joy that He has made available to us. And John said the reason that God had him write this epistle was so that we could have “A Joy That Is Full.” I don’t know about you, but I like the sound of that and the idea that my life can be one of not only joy, but one that is full of joy! So, let’s see what we can find in this epistle that will help us increase our joy to the point that we have all the joy that we can possibly have.
But before we do that, I want to remind you of some things. The first thing we must remember is that when the Bible gives us a promise like “your joy may be full,” we must remember that we will only receive that promise by faith. Faith is the key to unlocking Heaven. New Light, think about faith as the money or currency that “pays” for everything we get from Heaven. If our lives are lacking in faith, our lives will also be lacking joy. We can still have joy, but it will be a joy that is on life support. I don’t want joy that is barely surviving. I want joy in my life that is so full everyone will know it! The second thing we must remember is that in order to bring our faith to life, in order to bring more joy into our lives, we must speak in agreement with the Bible. Romans 10:17 says “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Faith comes as we read the Bible and then do what the Bible says. That is what the word “hearing” means.
The Apostle John tells us in the Gospel of John why Jesus was able to do the things that He did when He was on earth and it is instruction specifically for us today. “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.” (John 5:19). Later on in this chapter Jesus says “I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.” (Verse 30) In these two verses, we see THE key that will lead to the kind of faith that operated in Jesus’ life and the kind of faith that can operate in our lives. That key is really simple New Light: all we have to do to increase our faith is to do what the Bible tells us to do. Remember in the messages about the power of joy we learned from Ephesians 5:1 that we are to imitate our Father? Jesus says that whatever He sees His Father do, that is what He does. What Jesus is also saying is this: “I do not believe anything that My Father does not believe.” What Jesus is describing in these verses is what John talks about when he uses the word “fellowship.” By faith, we can have fellowship with Father and with the Son when our hearts are in total agreement and harmony with them. When we do that New Light, we are joining THEIR fellowship. We are coming into agreement with them. And John says that as that agreement increase, so does the fellowship and when the fellowship increases so does our joy. It’s a simple equation: more fellowship with the Father and the Son equals more joy.
Now, what do we find in First John chapter one that will enable us to slowly increase our fellowship with the Father and the Son so that our joy may be full? One of the first things we see is a statement that we must absolutely believe. If we don’t, we will not ever have the fullness of joy in our lives. Verse 5 says “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.” If we believe that God can ever be a source of darkness, then our faith will fail and our joy will fail. But John wants us to understand that not wavering on this one thing – that there is absolutely no darkness in God, in our Father, is the launching point for a joy that is full. Look at Chapter 2, verse 1. “My little children, these things write I to you, so that you may not sin.” If we are going to become more and more joyful, we cannot live a life of sin which can separate us from God. And John tells us in verse 3 that we will show the world that we know Jesus “if we keep His commandments.” My father-in-law sent me a sermon this week from Charles Stanley about having God’s peace. In that message Pastor Stanley said that we cannot have God’s peace if we are living in sin – if we are violating God’s commandments. He said you cannot have peace with God without being obedient to God. Finally he said that people who live in doubt about the things of God cannot have His peace. The same applies for walking in His joy.
In the verses we have seen so far, we see a pattern for developing “A Joy That Is Full.” The first thread in the pattern is believing that there is absolutely nothing in God and what He does that creates darkness. In other words, things like car accidents, illness and disease that people say God is using to teach them a lesson or to increase their faith cannot be true. There is no light in anything that causes people harm or diminishes them in some way. The second thread in this pattern is living a life where sin is not welcomed. In the last part of chapter one, John said if we sin we are to confess that sin and then God, who is faithful and just, will forgive us and make us clean again. New Light, that is why repentance is so important. Without it, we will be unclean before God and the person who is unclean will not spend an eternity with the One who is. And the third thread causes a lot of difficulty in the Church. The only way a person will know that we know Jesus is when we keep His commandments. And the person will know that you know Jesus, and may not like it, because what you say and do are in agreement with the Bible and not with them. In other words, people will know we belong to Jesus because it will come out in our conduct, in our communication, and in our character. New Light, more times than not, this is not easy. It’s not pleasant. It’s not popular. It can cause tension in relationships. But it is a crossroad that each one of us will eventually come to. And the decision we make at that crossroad will impact, not only our fellowship with the Father, His Son and our joy, but also our eternal destinations. I’m reminded of Peter and John’s response to the religious leaders when they were being forced to choose to obey God or the religious leaders. “But Peter and John answered and said to them, ‘Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. 20For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. (Acts 4:19-20) And remember, John uses these same words when he opens First John – “that which we have seen and heard we declare to you.” (1 John 1:4)
Later on in chapter two, John identifies something else that devastates our fellowship with the Father and Jesus and kills the growth of joy in our lives. “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the Father but of the world. 17And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.” (1 John 2:15-17) Let me give you an example of how we can love the world at the expense of loving the Father. How many of us, or relatives and our friends have schedule things on Sunday at the same time our churches are holding services – things that could have been scheduled later? Now I’m going to really step on some toes, including my own. During football season, how many Christians look at the clock when the pastor is preaching because they don’t want to miss the start of the game or they skip church altogether to go tailgate? Many will say there is nothing wrong with this – but in truth it speaks to the priorities of the heart. All of these examples fit into John’s description of loving the world. And all of these examples will prevent the joy God has given to us from ever becoming full.
In chapter three we see some other things that must be a priority for us if we are to strengthen our fellowship with the Father and Jesus that will lead to a joy that is full. “For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” (Verse 11) John once again brings us back to chapter one where he talks about the beginning, which is the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. And he says loving one another is THE message that Jesus taught the disciples from the very beginning. New Light, if we are going to have fellowship with the Father and Jesus, which leads to a joy that is full, we must love one another. Now I want to make sure you understand who we are to love. Yes, God loves the whole world, including the person who is living in sin and doesn’t know Him. We must love that person too. But here, John is taking us back to what Jesus taught in John 13:34 and 35. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have love you, that you also love one another. 35By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” If we want to strengthen our fellowship with the Father and Jesus, and bring our joy to its fullness, we must obey this new commandment. Now why does Jesus say the commandment is new? People under the Law could not love people the way Jesus is commanding the disciples and us to love people. As a matter of fact, we couldn’t love people this way without the love of God being within us. The love that Jesus is talking about is a love that one has only if they are born again. That’s why it was a new commandment.
There are three verses in First John chapter four that the Holy Spirit instructs John to include because of the powerful way it connects us to the Godhead and to the absolute possibility of achieving a joy that is full. The first verse is verse four, “You are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.” And the second is verse 15 says “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him, and he in God.” Remember the overarching theme of this epistle is to show us how to have the kind of fellowship with the Father and Jesus that will lead to lives that are full of joy. John says that when we know that God is our Father and that He is in us and that there is nothing in this world that is greater than Him, it is a reason for us to have joy in this life. And then John says that we can have fellowship with the Father and Jesus and increasing joy simply because we confessed Jesus as the Son of God! New Light, our Father has made fellowship with Him and Jesus and the opportunity for life full of joy very simple.
We are going to end the message with two verses in chapter five. New Light, they are powerful verses about you. Keep that in mind as we read them. And remember, we are reading verses that help us develop fellowship with the Father and Son that will lead us to having a joy that is full. We are going to read verses four and five. “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith. 5Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? New Light, the moment each one of us accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior is the moment we overcame the things of this world. When John writes that we have overcome the world, he’s talking about who we are to God and who we are to Satan. Satan is not our master. But it often seems like he is doesn’t it? Do you know why that is? Most of us in the Church have not gotten to the point that we believe what the Bible says about us. We don’t believe the One living in us is Satan’s creator. We don’t believe that accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior truly made of overcomers in this world. When the church gets to the point of really believing what the Bible says about who we are and what we are capable of doing, Satan is going to have a rude awakening and our joy, New Light, is going to be a joy that is full!
So let me close with this, as a child of God we have access to joy. That joy can be in abundance, or it can be what some describe as “some joy” based on my situation. In this case what they are describing is happiness. While the joy we have is not determined by our circumstances, how much joy we walk in is aligned to our relationship with God and His Son Jesus Christ. Remember, our relationship with Christ will be evident in our conduct, communication and our character. And you know what, so will His joy! Are you walking in the fullness of God’s joy? If not, today is the day you can make the decision to start. Have a blessed week.
Until next time, “The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
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