As a fruit of the Holy Spirit, joy is a virtue that every Christian must cultivate. Yet true joy involves much more than putting on a happy face. Today, R.C. Sproul reflects on the biblical characteristics of a joyful life. Request R.C. Sproul’s devotional The Advent of Glory, his book Can I Have Joy in My Life?, and lifetime digital access to his teaching series Joy—all for your donation of any amount: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/3710/joy Meet Today’s Teacher: R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was known for his ability to winsomely and clearly communicate deep, practical truths from God’s Word. He was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine. Meet the Host: Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, host of the Ask Ligonier podcast, and a graduate of Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Nathan joined Ligonier in 2012 and lives in Central Florida with his wife and four children. Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
It is the Christian's duty. It is the Christian's moral obligation to be joyful. And the failure of the Christian to be a joyful person is sin.
Since Scripture commands us to rejoice, joy is a duty for the Christian. But how can that be, especially when Scripture also commands us to weep with those who weep? Joy will be our theme this week on Renewing Your Mind, so be sure to listen every day.
To help you study the topic of joy further and prepare for the Christmas season, when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org, we'll send you Dr. Sproul's title, Can I Have Joy in My Life?, and his Christmas devotional, The Advent of Glory, while also giving you lifetime digital access to this series on joy.
So give your gift today at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes. In an anxious world, how can the Christian have joy and obey the command to rejoice always? Here's Dr. Sproul.
Today we're going to be looking at the biblical theme of joy. It's a word that occurs over and over and over again in the Scriptures, not only in the New Testament, but for example, the Psalms are filled with reference to joy and to rejoicing. I'm particularly interested in this concept of joy because it is numbered in the list of
that Paul gives in Galatians of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, so that we see that joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit and that joy is a Christian virtue. Now that may sound somewhat strange to our ears today. Sometimes we struggle with the relationship between how joy or happiness is defined and described in our culture and how joy is articulated in the Bible.
I know that one of the common methods of interpreting or translating Jesus' teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is to take the traditional language of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says, blessed are the poor, or blessed are those who mourn, or blessed are those who hunger and thirst at the righteousness, and so on, to translate that in the modern vernacular by saying, happy are those who are the peacemakers, or so on.
And I always kind of cringe when I see those modern renditions, not because I'm opposed to happiness, but because that term happy in our culture has been so sentimentalized and trivialized and is so superficial in so many of the statements that we hear about it.
You remember the statement that was made famous a few years ago, happiness is a warm puppy, or the adage or maxim that's become part of our folk wisdom in the last few years, don't worry. be happy. And it kind of suggests a kind of carefree, cavalier attitude of delight. Whereas in the New Testament, particularly in the Beatitudes, the word there is not happy, it is blessed. And
And to be blessed certainly includes happiness, but it calls attention to a profoundly deep matter of the state of the soul that enjoys profound peace, comfort, stability, as well as great joy.
And so, we need to be careful when we come to the text of the New Testament that we don't confuse some of these popular understandings of happiness with the biblical concept of blessedness or the concept of joy. Now there is something that we have in common between the teaching of the New Testament and this popular adage, don't worry, be happy.
You notice how that adage is communicated in our culture, don't worry, be happy. or the simple phrase, smile, you know, is that those adages communicate an imperative. They communicate a duty. It's not a suggestion, well, come on, let's all pack up our troubles in an old kit bag and smile, smile, smile. No, it's be happy. It's like a command. Now, what's the problem with that?
What do you feel is the problem with that? Sometimes you get annoyed or irritated when somebody comes up to you and says, what's the matter with you? Why don't you be happy? And you feel inside yourself, how can I just push a button or make a decision or by an act of my will conjure up happiness? We tend to think of happiness as something that is passive. That is, it happens to us.
We have no control over it, but it's rather involuntary. It's something we desire and want to experience, but it's not something that we can create by an act of the will. Well, we have to say here that when we look at this concept of joy in the New Testament, the idea of joy is communicated over and over and over again in the Scripture as an imperative, as an obligation.
Now let me summarize it this way and say something that may strike you as outrageous. It is the Christian's duty. It is the Christian's moral obligation to be joyful. And the failure of the Christian to be a joyful person is sin. That unhappiness and a lack of joy in a certain way and in a certain dimension, is a manifestation of the flesh. Now, please don't misunderstand me.
Certainly, there are times when we are filled with sorrow. Jesus Himself was called a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. The Scriptures tell us that it is better to go to the house of mourning than to spend our time with fools. And again, even in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Now, we could sort of play with that statement a little bit. I hope not irresponsibly play with it. And hear Jesus saying, happy are those who mourn. Now wait a minute. Or joyful are those who mourn. How can a person be in mourning and still be joyful? How can Jesus be a man of sorrows and still at the same time be a man of joy? Well, I think we can unravel that somewhat easily.
When the Bible tells us that it's perfectly legitimate to experience feelings of mourning and of sorrow and of grief, these things are not sinful feelings. But the reality of the New Testament concept is this, that a person can have the biblical dimension of joy even when they are in mourning, even when they are experiencing grief and in the very midst of sorrow.
because our mourning is directed in one way to one thing or one concern, whereas in that very moment, considering other things, we still can possess a measure of joy. even in the midst of affliction and the midst of suffering. In fact, in our next message, I want to speak specifically to that question of how we can have joy in the very midst of of suffering and in the very midst of affliction.
But for now, I want to concentrate on this idea of joy as a fruit of the Spirit and as a Christian virtue. Now, in the first instance, let me call your attention to Paul's writings to the Philippians.
If one would read the small letter that Paul writes to the Philippians, I don't know the exact number of times, but again and again and again, in this particular epistle, Paul speaks about joy and about the Christian's duty to rejoice. For example, in the fourth chapter of Philippians, In verse 4, Paul says this, Rejoice in the Lord always. Notice that. Rejoice in the Lord always.
Not sometimes, periodically, or occasionally, but rejoice in the Lord always. And what's the next sentence? Again, I say... rejoice." Now if you read this whole epistle, Paul deals with some very, very somber matters here of his own potential for being martyred, of being poured out as a sacrifice.
And yet he says to the people that they should be joyful about Paul and his circumstances as well as being joyful about other things. How can we be joyful, though, as a matter of discipline or of the will or of decision? And how is it possible to be joyful all the time? Well, I think the key to it is what Paul says, rejoice in the Lord always.
And we'll look at this more fully later, but for now in passing, again, the key to the Christian's joy is where that Christian joy is located, and what is the foundation of that Christian joy, and it is that which is in the Lord. If Christ is in me and I am in Him, that relationship of being in Christ is not a sometimes experience.
The Christian is always in the Lord, and the Lord is always in the Christian, and so by virtue of our relationship with Christ, there is always a reason for joy. And that reason is a rejoicing.
If we can't rejoice in our circumstances, if we can't rejoice in the pain we're experiencing, if we can't rejoice in the sorrow or grief that we know, in the midst of that very sorrow and grief, we rejoice in Him. We rejoice in Christ. We rejoice in the Lord, and we rejoice always. And I think that it is understood here that
Since joy is a fruit of the Spirit, this is one of the marks of our sanctification, that our sanctification is displayed not only by faith and gentleness and patience and longsuffering and goodness and the other things that are mentioned in that list that Paul gives us in Galatians, but also one of the manifestations of the Spirit of God working in our souls is the presence of joy.
the presence of joy. Now, not too long ago we did a little summary study of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and I mentioned at that time that the fruit of the Holy Spirit is not the same as the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We notice in the New Testament that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are distributed to different people for various reasons. Not everyone has the gift of teaching.
Not everyone has the gift of preaching. Not everyone has the gift of giving. Not everyone has the gift of administration. We understand that. But it's not the same idea when we come to the fruit of the Spirit.
It's not like some Christians have the fruit of faith while other Christians don't have faith, or that some Christians have the fruit of goodness and gentleness while other Christians don't have the fruit of goodness and gentleness, or that some Christians have the fruit of joy but other Christians don't. No. Every Christian is to manifest all of the fruit of the Spirit.
And that means that the more we grow in grace, The further we progress in our sanctification, the more gentle we should become, the more patient we should become, the more faithful we should become, and obviously what? The more joyful we should become. Now in simple terms, that means that the Christian life is not to be a life of dourness or of a miserable spirit or attitude.
We all have our bad days. I understand that. But the basic characteristic of a Christian personality is a personality that is characterized by joy. We should be the happiest people in the world because we have so much to be happy about. And so Paul doesn't hesitate to say rejoice, to make it in the imperative, to make it a command. We're commanded to rejoice.
Well, again, when I receive a command and have an obligation or a duty to something, that seems to presuppose the idea that If I am responsible to be joyful, then there must be something, particularly if I'm a regenerate person, there must be something I can do about it if I find myself lacking in joy. Well, here the New Testament is filled with admonitions and teaching on how to be joyful.
Paul doesn't just say, be happy, press a button. He doesn't say that. He tells us to be joyful, and the New Testament points us to the how again and again and again. And that basic how, as we will explore in greater detail, is by focusing our attention on the grounds of our joy, on the source of our joy. Do you find yourself in a very practical way ever struggling over that?
I find myself at times depressed, down in the dumps, worried, unhappy, grousing, annoyed, irritated, and I find this bad mood coming over myself. And I think of what the apostle will say at other times, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are good, think on these things. Meditate upon the things of the Lord. Turn your attention to the things of God. Return to the source of your joy.
And then these other things begin to be seen in their perspective, and they pale into insignificance when we consider the circumstances of this life over against that which we have received from God. You know, sometimes we are only as happy or as spiritual as the intensity of our memory of the latest blessing that we have experienced at the hands of God. We're always looking for spiritual retreats
for the mountaintop experience, for a spiritual high that will get us all excited and filled with joy. But we know that these great feelings of intensity tend to wear off. They tend to wane. And I think about that a lot, and I say, wait a minute.
If I don't experience another blessing in my entire life in addition to the blessings I've already received from the hand of God, what possible reason would there be for me to be anything but filled with joy until the day I die? God has already given me so much.
to be thankful for, so much to experience gratitude about, and to provoke my soul to delight and to gladness and to joy that I should be able to live on the basis of that surplus capital of blessedness to keep me basically joyful all of my days. Now the good news is God won't stop right now manifesting His care, His providential love, and giving you His tender mercies and His blessings.
He continues to do that, and every day that we live as a Christian, we have more reasons. reason to rejoice than we had the day before because we've spent one more day under His care, receiving His love, receiving the benefits that He pours out upon us, all those things that make us joy. But what's the great enemy of joy?
In the New Testament, it seems to be not so much sorrow, not so much grief, it's anxiety. Isn't it interesting that here in the Philippian message where Paul says, Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. He goes on to say in verse 5, Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing.
But in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Whose teaching does that sound like?
It almost seems as if Paul was an eyewitness to the Sermon on the Mount and to the teaching of Jesus when he said to his own disciples, be anxious for nothing. It's worry, it's anxiety that robs us of our joy, isn't it? And what is anxiety but fear? Fear is the enemy of joy. It's hard to be joyful when you're afraid, when you're worried, when you're concerned.
But again, what's the solution to that? It's going back to our Father. It's going to Him in prayer. It's entering into fellowship with Him. It's staying close to the source of our joy so that our anxieties can be shed from our souls and the virtue and the strength of the fruit of the Spirit may come alive again within us. What are you worried about? Notice I didn't say, are you worried?
I don't have to know you. I know you're worried. I worry about all kinds of things. Sometimes I think I'm a worry wart. We have that expression in our culture. And when I am worried, particularly fearful about things, I don't feel a lot of gladness or elation or joy. And I think the greatest manifestation of the weakness of our faith comes at that level, at the level of fear.
As I've said before, the prohibition that Jesus gives more than any other in all of His teaching in the New Testament is the prohibition, fear not. But it's hard, isn't it? Because we are frail. Our faith is fragile. We don't like pain. We don't like loss. And there is much in this fallen world to be afraid of.
And there seems to be much in every way and every day that presses upon us to make us anxious. Anxiety is deeply, deeply rooted in the human soul. But if we would just understand who Christ is and what He has done for us, then we can have a new dimension of joy, the joy that marked the Christian community in the first century.
In all of their pain, in all of their persecution, in all of their suffering, the Christians were the happiest people in the world.
What a needed reminder today from R.C. Sproul, as worry can easily seem to be around every corner. Today's message on renewing your mind is from Dr. Sproul's series on joy, and you can unlock lifetime digital access to this series when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org.
To thank you for your generous support of Renewing Your Mind, we'll also send you his title, Can I Have Joy in My Life? and his Christmas devotional, The Advent of Glory. Call us at 800-435-4343 or give online at renewingyourmind.org to request this resource bundle today. Remember, there's always a convenient link in the podcast show notes as well.
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