CHOOSING JOY
6. JOY
A Neglected Discipline
Homes have kitchens, and kitchens have counters, and on many kitchen counters today stands a plastic container labeled “Joy”—“Lemon Fresh Joy,” to be precise. What does it hold? Detergent, for the operation that in England is called “washing up” and in America “doing the dishes.” (Think about the fact that “wash up” in America means “make yourself clean and comfortable, ready for a meal,” and you will see how right Oscar Wilde was to speak of England and America as two great nations separated by a common language.)
Why call a detergent “Joy”? The question is not hard to answer. “Joy” is a word that has “good vibes.” It is a word that makes one feel bright, and when washing dishes one needs bright feelings. The word has this effect because it connects to the desire of our heart We want joy. We were made for joy. The value of human beings is sometimes affirmed by quoting, from a black source, the words “God don’t make no junk.” In similar fashion, we may affirm the true goal of human life by saying, “God don’t make nobody for misery.” If we are miserable, it is because we have chosen to say no to joy. The fact remains that God intended joy for us from the start.
JOY IS INTENDED
Let me spell that out. Scripture shows that God creates human beings with their joy in view. “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and [in so doing] to enjoy him for ever” (Westminster Shorter Catechism, answer to question 1). Joy was God’s plan for man from the beginning. God’s purpose that we should enjoy him, both directly in face-to-face fellowship and indirectly through enjoyment of what he has created, is pictured by the fact that the earthly home that he gave Adam and Eve was a pleasure-garden (Eden) where he himself walked in the cool of the day. The psalmist regains a spiritual sanity he had almost lost when he declares: “I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterwards you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you . . . . God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.... It is good to be near God” (Ps. 73:23-28). The thought is the same as in Psalm 43:4, where God is called “my joy, and my delight.” The New Testament tells us that our redemption and life in Christ reverses our damnation and death in Adam (see Rom. 5:12-19; 1 Cor. 15:2If.), that God “richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment” (1 Tim. 6:17), and that glorified saints endlessly delight in the God whom they endlessly adore (see Rev. 7:9-17; 21:1-4; 22:1-5). Thus it appears that God’s saving activity vindicates, restores, and fulfills his original purpose of joy for man that Satanic malice and human sin have thwarted. Joy to the world remains God’s goal.
The New Testament takes us a step further in understanding this. In John’s Gospel the veil is lifted on the mutual love and honor that bind Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together in the unity of the one eternal God (see John 2:l6f.; 4:34; 5:19-30; 6:38-40; 12:27f.; 13:31£; 14:31; 16:13-15), and Jesus prays to his Father that his disciples may be “one ... in us ... as we are one: I in them and you in me” (John 17:21-23). He states his wish “that they may have the full measure of my joy within them” (v. 13). God’s original purpose was that human beings should share the joyful togetherness of the Trinity, and the gospel of Christ, which proclaims deliverance from sin and is backed up by God’s providential kindness (see Acts 14:17; Rom. 2:4), is an invitation to enter this joy through penitent and trustful worship. It is in love to the Father and the Son, love that mirrors the Son’s love for the Father, that the fullness of joy will be finally found. But sin—self-worship, transgression, unbelief, impenitence—separates us from the joy of God, and exposes us to a godless eternity instead (see John 3:16-21; Rom. 1:18—2:16; Rev. 22:11-15). But the gospel invitation still stands, and if by embracing sin we miss joy, both present and future, the fault is ours.
Stop, now, and ask yourself: Do I know joy as a central, staple, constant reality in my life? “Rarely, rarely, comest thou, / Spirit of delight,” wrote Shelley, and his experience should not surprise us, for he was a stubborn, passionate atheist. The Christian, however, discovers that, though living in this fallen and disordered world is never a “joy ride,” yet it may become a “joy road” through response to the call of God.
JOY IS PRECIOUS
To dwell at length on the preciousness of joy is needless. Joy makes you shout; joy makes you jump; joy turns mere existence into real living. Joy is life with a capital L Joy produces tears, and when you weep for joy it is not because you are miserable. I remember my son at the age of seven or eight rolling around the floor with his eyes full of tears, saying, “I’m so happy! I’m so happy!” Why was this? For the first time in his life he had beaten his daddy at Ping-Pong, and he couldn’t get over it! We talk about the huge joys of childhood, and they are indeed huge, but there is no reason why joy of equal intensity should not be part of adult life. That it can be, and should be, is what this chapter seeks to show.
Salutations in England bear witness to the preciousness of joy. Where Americans greet their friends by saying, “Hi!
How’re you doing?” it has become common in England to hail friends with the words, “Any joy?” This is a good question. If you are concerned about another person this is what you want to know: has anything happened to make them sing, shout, and feel on top of the world? Sometimes the answer has to be no, for the world these days is short on joy. But it is sad when that is the only answer one can give. “Any joy?” is my question to you who read this, and your life will be poor and barren indeed if the facts force you to say no.
Joy is at the heart of satisfied living. It is also at the heart of real and credible Christianity, the Christianity that glorifies God and shakes the world. As joy is, to quote C. S. Lewis, “the serious business of heaven,” so it is central to serious godliness on earth. “The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17). A joyless Christianity (and joylessness cannot be hidden) will become an obstacle to believing Paul’s statement and will render the faith repulsive rather than attractive, whereas a joyful Christianity is a most arresting advertisement for the transforming power of the gospel. So all who hope to cut ice as witnesses for Christ will do well to study the art of joy as part of their spiritual preparation.
The joy that gives Christians credibility also gives them energy. When Nehemiah organized a day in Jerusalem for the reading and preaching of the Law, the people were so overwhelmed as they realized what they had been missing for so many years that they dissolved in tears. Nehemiah told them to stop weeping and start celebrating: “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared . . . . Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh. 8:12). Half a century ago, Hitler lifted the thought “Strength through Joy” from this passage and made it the motto of the Hitler Youth movement; the secularization was grotesque, but the psychology was sound. In times of persecution it has always been joyful Christians who have proved strong under pressure. In times of difficulty it is the joyful Christians who decline to be discouraged and who show most of what America calls stick-to-itiveness and England stickability. So if we want to prove strong in the Lord we need to study joy.
Do I arouse eagerness in your heart? Or do I irritate you? There are people who resent the suggestion that joy is for everyone. “Oh,” they say, “that may be all right for you, but it’s no use for me; it’s just mockery as far as I’m concerned.” They say that because they are hurting emotionally. If you are hurting, it is hard to believe that there is any possibility of joy for you. You feel bitter and angry when you know that others experience joy and want to pass it on to you. But to readers enmeshed amid the four black s— disappointment, desolation, depression, desperation—or bogged down in any one of the four black F's—frustration, failure, fear, fury—I wish to say two things.
First, Christians are not victims and prisoners of either the past or the present. The powers of forgiveness and new creation are at work in their lives. Before them lies a sure and certain hope of deliverance, transformation, and glory. Joy will some day be theirs in fullest measure, and they should not give way to the black feeling that life will never be better for them than it is now.
Second, Christians have, so to speak, larger souls than other people; for grief and joy, like desolation and hope, or pain and peace, can coexist in their lives in a way that non-Christians know nothing about. Grief, desolation, and pain are feelings triggered by present situations, but faith produces joy, hope, and peace at all times. This does not mean that grief, desolation, and pain cease to be felt (that idea is inhuman); it means that something else is experienced alongside the hurt. It becomes possible for Christians today, like Paul long ago, to be “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing”
(2 Cor. 6:10). People who sorrow should be told that God offers them joy whatever their circumstances; for this assurance is just as true for them as it is for anyone else.
JOY MODELED
Paul’s description of himself as “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” might sound so paradoxical as to be incredible. Demonstrably, however, it was the sober truth. For the demonstration, one need only look at his letter to the Philippians. Philippians is relaxed and informal as compared with, say, Galatians or Romans or 1 Corinthians. Paul writes it to his converts, who are also his friends, not to settle major matters of faith or practice, but to thank them for a gift, to tell them how he was doing, to encourage them in the Lord, and to announce Timothy’s forthcoming visit to them. You and I, writing to our friends, will probably share our troubles more than our joys, but Paul’s letter radiates joy from first to last. This is remarkable, since he is writing from a Roman prison, probably chained to a guard day and night, and with a capital charge hanging over his head!
Joy and rejoice are the keywords of Philippians. Paul calls his converts his joy (4:1); he prays for them with joy (1:4); he rejoices in their generosity to him, seeing it as furthering their own spiritual welfare (4:10, 17); he asks them to practice unity, so as to make his joy brimful (2:2); he rejoices that Christ is being preached, even though sometimes from false motives (1:18); he finds joy even in the possibility of his own martyrdom, and tells his friends that should it happen they must rejoice in it too (2:17f.), though he expects that he will be released “for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow” (l:25f.). At what, for the moment, he takes to be the end of his letter, he writes: “Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord!” (3:1); and, then, after discovering that he has a good deal more to say, and saying it, he comes back with emphasis to the same point: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (4:4). Note that he says, not “sometimes,” but “always!” He does not merely encourage constant joy; he commands it, which is rather breathtaking. Yet when he tells his friends always to rejoice, he is not asking them to do anything more than he does himself.
Two situations that find Paul rejoicing are specially noteworthy. Both might have been expected to cut off rather than produce joy. The first is an experience of personal malice. Cooped up in captivity, Paul cannot be out and about, spreading the gospel of Christ in the way that his apostolic commission and evangelistic instincts direct, and that is undoubtedly frustrating for him. However, this cloud has a silver lining: local Christians have been stirred up through knowing that Paul is, as he says, “in chains for Christ” (1:13) to witness in public more boldly than before.
Looking behind actions to motives, as good pastors do, Paul sees that “some preach Christ... out of goodwill... in love, knowing that I am put here for the defence of the gospel” (1:15f.). One imagines them sending him messages: “Don’t fret, Paul, because you can’t come out and preach; we’ll preach, you pray, and together we’ll advance the gospel.” Such messages would be most supportive and encouraging.
Others, however, as Paul also sees, “preach Christ out of envy and rivalry... out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains” (1:15, 17). Malice is motivating these preachers. They want to make Paul feel wretched and miserable, perhaps because they are publicly disagreeing with him on key points, deliberately arousing prejudice against him, usurping his leadership, or simply because he lacks the freedom to preach as they do. It seems unbelievable that men who preached Christ could take pleasure in rubbing salt into the wounds of Paul the great apostle, but such pettiness on the part of proud preachers toward those whom they see as standing in their way has recurred constantly in the history of the church, and it is not unknown today.
Note how Paul reacts. It would have been easy, and in a sense natural, for him to slip into the spineless self-pity and nail-biting misery that his rivals were wishing upon him. He knew, however, what every one of us needs to know: we are free not to choose the feelings that others choose for us. So he declines to feel miserable. “What does it matter?” he writes. “The important thing is that... Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice” (1:18).
Magnificent! Yes—and a model for us. How do we react when meanness and malice link arms to create misery? How do we cope when we become objects of a vendetta, finding ourselves surrounded by people who want to pull us down? How do I, as an author, handle contemptuous reviews of my books? From Paul’s example we learn that even at such times joy and peace are possible. We do not have to react as others want us to react. To a greater extent than we may yet have realized, we can choose what to think about (see 4:8). If we focus our mind on joy-inducing facts, we become impervious to those who would plunge us into misery, however great their hostility, however strong their influence, and however little we can do about them at present.
The second triumph of joy in Paul’s life that Philippians reveals is yet more amazing. It is joy in the expectation of possible martyrdom. Paul knows that his imprisonment may end in the death sentence. He lives with that uncertainty, hoping that God will bring about his release but not able to be quite sure (1:19-26). Even so, joy breaks in. He knows that if his life is cut short he goes to be with the Lord, and that whatever happens is the will of God. He can say: “Even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith”—if, in other words, my death accompanies and completes your giving of your lives to God—“I am glad and rejoice with all of you” (2:17). Living under this sword of Damocles, he is still lighthearted enough to talk, playfully, as if the choice between death and life is really his, and he is finding it hard to make up his mind (1:21-24)! In the power of his joy he feces death as readily and squarely as he feces life. Could you? Could I?
In Britain and America execution for active Christianity is unlikely to come our way, but it is morally certain that some who read this will be called upon one day to glorify God by dying of cancer. What does that thought do to us? Does it strike a chill into our hearts? Cancer is a beast. But it is clear that Paul could have faced cancer and rejoiced, and if we master the secret of his joy, so may we.
JOY COMMANDED
And joy of Paul’s kind—holy, strong, supportive, unquenchable—is actually commanded! “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again [for emphasis, as when we ourselves repeat things]: Rejoice!” It is not an option, it is an order. This is what Paul, as Christ’s official spokesman, directs us to do. The command comes from the Lord himself. The New English Bible’s “I wish you all joy in the Lord,” the Good News version’s “May you always be joyful in ... the Lord,” and Goodspeed’s “Good-bye, and the Lord be with you always. Again I say, good-bye,” miss the point being made here. Paul’s words express not just a pious wish but a practical imperative, requiring and obliging us to cultivate joy. (Granted, the Greek allows this watering down—just!—but the earlier use of “rejoice” in its full sense, plus the flow of thought in the context, makes the pious-wish exegesis most unlikely.) The practice of joy, then, is an art that we are required to learn.
JOY DEFINED
The first task is to discern what Christian joy actually is, and the first step toward that is to focus our ideas about the nature of joy. Many seem to stumble here, so I start with some negative statements to clear the ground.
Negation number one: joy is not the same thing as fun and games. Many people “have fun,” as we say, seeking and finding pleasure, without finding joy. You can “enjoy yourself’ and remain joyless. The restless, relentless pursuit of pleasure (sex, drugs, drink; gadgets, entertainments, travels) is very much a mark of our time, at least in the affluent West, and it clearly indicates a lack of joy. Christians who know the joy of the Lord find that a great deal of fun comes with it, but joy is one thing and fun is another. By contrast, Paul in prison had no fun (that seems a safe statement), yet he had much joy. You can have joy without fun, just as you can have fun without joy. There is no necessary connection between the two.
Negation number two: joy is not the same thing as jollity, that is, the cheerful exuberance of the person who is always the life of the party, the one who can be relied on for jokes and general effervescence, and of whom people say that there’s never a dull moment when he (or she) is around. Some Christians are like that, others are not and never will be, but this is a matter of temperament that has nothing to do with joy. One may have a bouncy temperament and yet miss joy, or one may be a low-key person with a melancholic streak, whom no one would ever call “jolly,” and yet have joy in abundance. That is good news, for if joy depended on having a jolly temperament, half my readers, and I with them, would have to conclude ourselves unqualified and debarred from joy for ever. But the truth is that however our temperaments differ, the life of “joy in the Lord” is available to us all.
I remember as a young Christian hearing a venerable pulpiteer insist, with great emphasis, that good Christians have teapot faces rather than coffeepot faces. Standard English teapots are spherical, and the teapot face is round, with a big, broad beam and four-inch smile. Standard English coffeepots, by contrast, are long and thin, and the coffeepot face is the same, and looks grave and sombre. Much impressed by this, I was considerably depressed when next I looked in the mirror! But I reflected that what the preacher had been talking about was bone structure, and bone structure will not be changed till God gives us our new bodies, and so, willy-nilly, my coffeepot face would be mine for life. Did that mean that I could not experience or express Christian joy? Not at all! The preacher’s point, that every Christian should radiate joy, was right, but he had made it in the wrong way. (Perhaps he was betrayed by having a chubby teapot face himself: who can say?) Anyhow, the point is that though some people will never be jolly and whoop it up in the way that other people do, both the exuberant ones and the quiet ones may know the joy that is the gift of God.
Negation number three: joy is not the same thing as being carefree. Advertisements that picture nubile young adults sprawling all over the Bahamas seek to persuade us that “getting away from it all” on vacation is the recipe for joy. Many people agree. But if that is so, as soon as the vacation ends and you return to the responsibilities and burdens and abrasivenesses of life—the depressing workplace, the uncongenial company, the repeated disappointments—joy will end because you are no longer carefree. Joy, on this view, will only be available to us for our two- or three-week vacation each year! This is the escapist idea of joy; we should be thankful that it is not true.
On the evening of his betrayal and arrest, perhaps twelve hours before his crucifixion, Jesus, who had already indicated that he knew what was facing him, said to his disciples:
“I have told you this (i.e., that obedience will keep you in my love) so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” 0ohn 15:11). These words tell us that joy was his at that moment, though he was not carefree. Similarly, Paul in prison, living with the possibility of summary execution, was not carefree, yet he had joy in abundance. Joy despite killing pressure was reality for Jesus and Paul, has been reality for tens of thousands of Christians since, and can be reality for us also.
What is joy? We have seen what it is not. A positive definition is now overdue. Though spiritual joy is our special interest in this study, we shall understand it better if first we focus on joy in its generic form. Here is my definition. Joy is a happiness of the heart, linked with good feelings of one sort or another. The word joy covers the entire spectrum of what may be called the rapturous, ranging from the extreme achings of ecstasy to the quiet thrill of contentment. Webster defines joy thus: “Excitement of pleasurable feeling caused by the acquisition or expectation of good;... delight; exultation; exhilaration of spirits.” Joy is a condition that is experienced, but it is more than a feeling; it is, primarily, a state of mind. Joy, we might say, is a state of the whole man in which thought and feeling combine to produce total euphoria. The preciousness of joy, the integral place of joy in the ideal life, and the pitifulness of joylessness, are apparent from the definition.
SOURCES OF JOY
Still thinking in generic terms, we now ask: where does joy come from? What causes it? What are the perceptions in which it is rooted? If we consulted a professional counselor on this point, we could expect to be told that joy springs from four sources.
First, joy flows from awareness of being loved. No one has joy who does not know that there is someone who values, accepts, and cares for him (or her). To feel that as a person I count for nothing in people’s eyes and that I do not matter to anyone and that what happens to me is not going to bother a single person is a great joy-killer. It makes impossible any sense of personal worth or well-being. The Western world is full of lonely people who never taste joy for this reason. The experience of being loved is a fountainhead of joy.
Second, joy flows from accepting one’s situation as good. As morphine kills pain, so discontent kills joy. People who are always fretting about the way things are, wishing they were different, and longing for things to happen that are not likely to happen, disqualify themselves from joy in a very thorough way.
Third, joy flows from having something worthwhile. We speak of our spouses, our children, our homes, our books, our hobbies as our joys. This, that, or the other, we say, is “a joy to me,” “a real joy,” “a great joy.” What we mean is that in these relationships and activities we have something that is precious and makes life worth living. If nothing you have seems worthwhile, you will not have joy.
Fourth, joy flows from giving something worth giving. Our self-centered age can hardly grasp that giving might be a way of joy, but it is. Every normal mother knows that giving is a way of joy; she works tirelessly to give her children a home and a life they will enjoy, and when they are happy, she is happy too. There are, broadly speaking, two sorts of human beings: those who are constantly giving and those who are constantly taking—acquiring, manipulating, exploiting, draining other people dry in their own insatiable self-absorption—and there is no question which category knows the most about joy. Many go through life without ever learning that joy is like jam, sticking to you as you spread it, but that is the truth all the same.
CHRISTIAN JOY
What has been said so far has been said in general terms; I have been generalizing about joy in all its many modes and forms, both secular and sacred. But Paul in Philippians is exemplifying and prescribing Christian joy—joy “in the Lord,” joy that flows from one’s relationship to Jesus Christ. This will be our specific theme from now on. Any who have not yet committed themselves to the risen Christ as their Savior and Master will find themselves at this point left behind. For now we are to see, in terms of our four-source formula, how the knowledge of one’s saving relationship to Christ can bring unquenchable joy into believing hearts, and this is something that only Christians can ever understand. “Rejoice in the Lord” means rejoice in being Christ’s, in having Christ’s Father as your Father, in being right with God the Father and an heir of his glory through Christ’s mediation, in possessing salvation and eternal life as Christ’s gift. We are to let joy flow from this source. How will that happen? Through the fulfilling of the four-source formula, as stated above.
The first source of joy is the awareness that one is loved. Christians know themselves loved in a way that no one else does, for they know that God the Father so loved them as to give his only Son to die on the cross in shame and agony so that they might have eternal life. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?... I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor ... anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:32, 38£). In this love that paid so great a price to save sinners, the Father and the Son were at one, for “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy” (Eph. 5:25£); and every Christian should follow Paul in drawing out the personal implication—“the Son of God ... loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).
Amazing love! How can it be
That thou, my God, should’st die for me?
The measure of love, human and divine, is how much it gives, and by this standard the love of God is immeasurable, because both the greatness of the gift, and the cost of giving it, are beyond our power to grasp. All human parallels fall short; all comparisons are inadequate.
Never was love, dear King,
Never was grief like thine.
Humbled and awed, Christians should bask daily in the awareness of God’s overwhelming, incomparable love.
The second source of joy is the acceptance of one’s situation as good. Christians can do this everywhere and always because they know that circumstances and experiences, pleasant and unpleasant alike, are planned out for them by their loving heavenly Father as part of their preparation for glory. “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). God’s purpose is that those whom he calls should be remade so that they become like their Savior, the incarnate Son Jesus Christ. Their good is the fulfilling of this divine purpose for them; and God works unceasingly in and through everything that happens so that it becomes in one way or another a means of bringing them closer to the goal.
It is a mistake to imagine that the good for which God works is our unbroken ease and comfort. God’s goal is, rather, our sanctification and Christlikeness, the true holiness that is the highway to happiness. Constant ease and comfort, therefore, are not to be expected. Yet Christians may nonetheless derive constant contentment from their knowledge that God is making everything that happens to them a means of furthering and realizing the glorious destiny that is theirs. “Whatever is good for God’s children, they shall have it,” wrote Richard Sibbes the Puritan, “for all is theirs to further them to heaven. If crosses be good, they shall have them, if disgrace be good, they shall have it, for all is ours, to serve our main good.” To understand this is to have the secret of abiding contentment in one’s grasp. Paul exemplifies such contentment, telling the Philippians: “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything”—everything, that is, that the ongoing flow of my God-governed life requires of me— “through him who gives me strength” (Phil. 4:1 If.). This contentment is the soil in which Paul’s joy is rooted and grows.
A single lady of about fifty, a career woman of some eminence in her profession, came to a conference in a condition bordering on nervous collapse. Her parents, who were both still living, had never treated her as anything other than their little girl whom they expected to dance attendance on them. (The story of unimaginative parents failing to adjust to the fact that their children have become adults is unfortunately not uncommon.) Her resentment of her parents’ attitude had built up to such a pitch of intensity that it was tearing her to pieces. During the conference, however, another woman showed her Christian love and care, and helped her to understand how Romans 8:28 applied to her home situation. The lady learned to see it as shaped by the Lord for her good, and went home rejoicing in the certainty that if she continued faithful in honoring her parents and ministering to them in Christian love, God would give her peace and further his work of grace in her life. Rarely have I seen so complete a transformation in so short a time. The secret was that she accepted her circumstances from the Lord as sent for her good. This is not always an easy lesson; it was not easy for her. But it is a basic lesson that all who would know Christian joy must learn.
Joy’s third source is possession of something worth possessing. Here, too, the Christian is supremely well placed, as we see from Paul’s further words about himself. In Philippians 3 we find him celebrating the incomparable worth of the saving relationship with Christ that he now possesses— or, rather, that now possesses him. “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things”
(v. 8). (So he had; he was an up-and-coming rabbi, a top-class Pharisee, a man marked out for distinction as a leader in Judaism. When he became a Christian he forfeited his status and all his prospects of advancement and found himself having to cope constantly with Jewish plots against his liberty and his life.) “I consider them [i.e., all the things I have lost] rubbish” (literally, dung, worthless stuff that can be jettisoned very cheerfully), “that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith” (vv. 8-9) (Righteousness is a salvation-word in Scripture, meaning a relationship with God that is right and as it should be, having been reestablished and set right after prior disruption. Righteousness is never in fact a human achievement brought about through law-keeping, as the Pharisees supposed, but is always a gift of God’s free grace, received in Christ, through faith in Christ-—that is, by means of union and communion with the living Savior. Paul is celebrating this righteousness that the Father gives in and with and through Christ, glorying in it as his present and permanent possession.) “I want to know Christ” (that is, to keep extending my knowledge of him, ever coming to know him better than I knew him before); “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:7-10, 14). That prize is essentially more of the precious relationship itself.
To paraphrase Paul: “I have lost a great deal, but I have gained more. What I have gained is something supremely worth having, something that is glorious and that will grow, broaden, deepen, and become richer to all eternity: namely, an ongoing love relationship with Jesus Christ the Savior. The more I have of it, the more I want of it; thus it establishes itself as the biggest and most valued thing in my life.” This is Paul’s emphasis, and his words will find an echo in every healthy Christian heart.
In courtship, the goal for both parties is lifelong togetherness in mutual love, honor, and enjoyment of each other. They see their relationship as an end in itself; they intend to keep seeing it that way through marriage, parenthood, and whatever the future holds. They expect it to continue to be what it already is to them, that is, a source of supreme delight and joy. The situation is similar when a sinner has come to know Jesus Christ as Savior. Christ is the great lover and giver whose welcome of us who believe guarantees that for all eternity we shall be beneficiaries of his goodwill and generosity. Gratitude for this amazing grace prompts the Christian to say, with Paul: “I have Christ. I know Christ. I love Christ. He is the pearl of great price. He is all I want. I am the happiest of human beings, for I am his and he is mine for ever, and I will cheerfully let anything go in order to hold on to him and enjoy the full fruits of his love.” These thoughts are a third source of joy.
The fourth source of joy is to give something worth giving. This also is an element of Christian experience in a special and unique way. Christ sends believers into the world to be his witnesses, and when they share their knowledge of Christ with others they know they are giving them the one thing that is supremely worth giving, and is in addition desperately needed. Paul found joy in the privilege of being put in trust with the gospel, and so should Christians today, even when for the moment the Good News is unappreciated and those to whom one is trying to bring it become rude and offensive in their manner of rejecting it.
As was said earlier, Christians can experience both joy and sadness at the same time. There is joy in making known the Word of Life, even when sorrow is also being felt because the gift has been spurned. But what joy there is when someone to whom one has witnessed comes to faith in Christ! Christians sometimes find themselves wondering whether their life is worthwhile, whether they are doing anything that is worth doing. They are sometimes concerned about frittering away precious time and opportunities, wondering whether the serious concerns of adult existence in Christ’s service have not slipped through their fingers. Sometimes these feelings are justified; Christians sometimes really are wasting their lives, and there is no joy in that. But Christians who invest time, effort, ingenuity, initiative, and prayer in spreading the gospel and helping build the faith of others do not feel this kind of self-doubt. They have no reason to do so. In a dying world, surrounded by fascinating fellow-mortals who because of their sins face a lost eternity, nothing is so well worth doing as sharing the good news about Jesus and the salvation he gives. No form of love to our neighbor is so appropriate and, indeed, urgent as evangelism. Christians who see this, and are consciously, wholeheartedly committed to this good work, as Paul was before them, find joy in it, just as he did.
CHOOSING JOY
Paul, as we have seen, not only testifies to joy in his own prison experience, but commands his Philippian friends to practice joy as a constant discipline of life. “Rejoice in the Lord always,” he writes, and repeats himself for emphasis. It is as if he should say: You must pray, worship, love each other, keep the commandments, bear one another’s burdens, set your moral sights by the Sermon on the Mount, witness, avoid all forms of sin, be Spirit-filled to do battle with Satan and temptation when they assault you, pursue good works, and seek to display the fruit of the Spirit constantly—and, along with all that, as a matter of special importance, you are to rejoice in your relationship to Jesus Christ all the time!
Joy is, in fact, one aspect of the fruit of the Spirit, and the habit of rejoicing in the Lord, as the appointed means whereby joy becomes a reality, is as much a matter of divine command and Christian duty as is the doing of any of the other things mentioned. It is true that joy, both natural and spiritual, will periodically come upon us as a gust or glow of unsought exhilaration, an unexpected kiss from heaven as it were, for which we should be grateful every time; but we are not on that account to think of joy as essentially a mood of euphoria for which we ask and then sit down to wait. Joy is a habit of the heart, induced and sustained as an abiding quality of one’s life through the discipline of rejoicing. Joy is not an accident of temperament or an unpredictable providence; joy is a matter of choice. Paul is directing his readers to choose to rejoice, because it is in and through the activity of rejoicing that joy becomes a personal reality.
We have seen this in Paul. He prays for the Philippians “with joy” because of their partnership in the gospel (1:5), and calls them his “joy” (4:1), as he does the Thessalonians, too (1 Thess. 2:19f·; 3:9). What he means is that when he thinks about them, dwelling on God’s grace in their lives, joy flows into his heart. Thus he rejoices in them, or rather rejoices in the Lord because of them, as for instance in Philippians 4:10: “I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me.” As we also saw, Paul can choose to rejoice in one aspect of a situation of which other aspects are calculated to depress: he rejoices that Christ is being preached, and refuses to brood on the bad motives of the preachers or to indulge in self-pity because he is not able to do what they are doing (1:15-18). This, more than anything else, makes it clear that joy is a choice; one chooses to focus one’s mind on facts that call forth joy. Such is the secret of “rejoicing in the Lord always,” namely, to choose what you think about. It is as simple—and as difficult!—as that.
Can we really choose what we are going to think about? In these days, when we are endlessly overstimulated from outside and the ever-present TV encourages the passive mind-set that makes us wait to be entertained, the idea of regularly choosing themes for our thoughts seems strange to the point of ffeakiness. But Paul has no doubt that thought-control of this kind is possible. He actually commands it. “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil.4:8, rsv). Controlling and directing one’s thoughts is a habit, and the more one practices it the better one becomes at it.
Motivation, of course, helps, and Christians have a strong motivation—a deep-rooted urge, instinctive to them as regenerate persons—to center their thoughts on God’s grace and glory at all times. As a person in love thinks loving thoughts of the beloved one spontaneously and constantly, so does the regenerate Christian think loving thoughts of God the Savior. And as it is common today for travelers to turn on their Walkman and let their attention be absorbed by the music that their earphones deliver, so it has always been common for Christians to let their thoughts be drawn up to God, magnet as he is to the regenerate mind, and to meditate—that is, talk to themselves and to God, silently or aloud—concerning God’s nature, works, and ways, in a manner that prompts praise and adoration, and brings endless delight to the heart. Paul’s instruction in what to think about simply gives focus and direction to this regenerate instinct, so as to ensure that our meditation will profit us as much as possible.
But what, in particular, are the true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, gracious, excellent, and praiseworthy things on which we are to center our thoughts? They are the doings of God and the fruit of those doings in human lives. They certainly include the fourfold awareness that we have discussed: first, that God loves me, infinitely and eternally; second, that everything comes to me from God, at least with his permission and always under his protection, to further my eternal good; third, that my saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus, which will eternally increase, is something supremely worth having; fourth, that the gospel message of salvation that I seek to pass on to others is something supremely worth giving. These thoughts will always prime the pump of joy in our hearts and thus produce a steady flow of joy, peace (see 4:7, 9), and delight. Try it, and see!
The secret of joy for believers lies in the fine art of Christian thinking. It is by this means that the Holy Spirit, over and above his special occasional visitations in moments of joy, regularly sustains in us the joy that marks us out as Christ’s. Our Lord Jesus wants our joy to be full. Certainly, he has made abundant provision for our joy. And if we focus our minds on the facts from which joy flows, springs of joy will well up in our hearts every day of our lives; and this will turn our ongoing pilgrimage through this world into an experience of contentment and exaltation of which the world knows nothing. From this experience of joy will come strength for service. Joy—that is, rejoicing in the Lord—is thus a basic discipline of the Christian life, essential to spiritual health and vitality. Few Christians seem to understand this, and fewer still seem to practice the discipline with diligence. But what a difference it makes when we do!
A generation ago I was close to a certain Christian family. Spiritually, I owe more to them than I think they ever realized. Life was not easy for them. The father died young, after being immobilized for years by heart disease. The daughter never grew normally and died in her teens of rheumatic fever. One son was so retarded mentally that he had to be institutionalized. The mother remarried, but died of cancer in middle age. Thereafter her second husband lived alone for some years, totally housebound with crippling arthritis. When I visited him, his gentle, sunny joyfulness in Christ, free from all complaint and self-pity, was a tonic from which my memory still draws nourishment. It is of him that I think when I hear Balaam’s words: “Let me die the death of the righteous, and may my end be like theirs!” (Num. 23:10). I saw in him the power of joy, and it was a revelation. Now I celebrate the power of joy as part of the gospel. Beethoven wrote on the score of his Missa Sollennis, “From the heart; may it in turn go to the heart.” I could have put the same words at the beginning of this chapter. God grant that my readers will get the message. I close with two Scriptures for you all who have followed me thus far.
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:13).
“To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and for evermore! Amen” (Jude 24-25).