Joy - The Fruit of the Spirit

Do you know what my consistent prayer as a child was? To be happy. Have you ever prayed this? I don’t think I prayed this because I was an unhappy child, sure I was bullied, I didn’t always feel like I had friends I trusted and was in and out of the hospital, but my parents taught me to rise above that stuff. In fact, most people have said that I was a very happy child, who always smiled and was present. The reason I prayed for happiness was that I knew there was more than the happiness I experienced and I longed for that greater happiness. I worked hard at it too. There were things I wanted and got. There were the things I worked hard at and achieved, but these didn’t provide the happiness I longed for. For a time they might have seemed to fill that hole, but it wouldn’t last. The problem was that I didn’t know what really made for lasting joy, even in the hard times, what made for Godly joy.

In our gospel reading today, Jesus starts by addressing how we can have joy from the worst experience by looking at what will be their greatest anguish, but surprisingly also their greatest joy. They had immense hope in Jesus and they had already begun to experience the joy of a changed life and world through that realized hope. When Jesus died it would have taken away all of this hope and the Godly change would have seemed fleeting as well. On top of that it would have felt like the brokenness and grief of this world won out. Most people that weren’t followers of Jesus would have been celebrating his death as their victory, their way winning out, their wills being accomplished. Yet how wrong all of these experiences and feelings were.

Jesus' resurrection from the dead, didn’t just mean a restored hope and joy, it meant a far greater one. It meant that the change they were experiencing in and around them was leading to a kind of change that would flip everything on its head, that would even transform suffering and death into life, hope, and strength. Jesus' Resurrection means that our hope for a better life and world is now a hope for a whole new life and world. It means that no matter what the world does, no matter how hard it gets, and no matter what seems to go drastically wrong, our hope in Jesus Christ would overcome it all. What is left but joy? And a joy that can never be taken away.

I’m sure most of you have experienced the loss of a hope. Maybe it was a death, a lost job, a lost relationship, a lost opportunity or sickness. Whatever it was, I think we have all experienced losing something that pointed the way to a better future. So, we know the kind of anguish that can result. In those moments, it is very hard to see the joy, the hope.

These things that we want that make us lose hope are not bad, but the first problem is that most of the time we have our hope in and our joy rests in the wrong things. God is the source, he is the consistent, and He is the giver of joy, everything else is fickle, lacking, and fleeting. No wonder these things make for insufficient happiness. When our joy and hope rest in God, we can know that he is always with us and will always overcome, even the worst distance or loss, in Him we are more than conquerors. Even when we experience the loss of hope, we can turn to every single time in which God has restored us or increased our hope and live in the trust that our faithful God will do it again. As we know God’s hope overcomes, we can live in joy even in loss, because the truth is that we don’t live in that loss, at least not the way others do.

The psalmist adds to this by showing us how there is a joy even in our failure as we can live in God’s salvation, knowing His consistent presence, and having our hearts purified. God’s overturning of what is wrong, healing, and replacing it with His goodness is such a great joy that we can rest in, depend on, and live out to a joyous life.

There’s more to putting our joy in the Lord than just the trust that all will be made right, because what Jesus has shown us is that loss itself while we are in relationship with him is actually a great source of our joy. As Jesus’ death gave us greater joy, because it lead to the resurrection, our struggle, service, and humility towards God can lead to greater joy too because it leads to a new life in His Kingdom. Everything and I mean everything negative we experience can become the birthing pains that actually lead to the insurmountable joy of new life in God’s Holy Spirit, if we have eyes to see it.

I have seen and experienced quite literal birth pains in the last few months, so I know how pain and struggle can actually lead to a far greater life and joy.

That leads me into our passage from Philippians 2, where Paul shows us that in our becoming like Jesus Christ, we might add to that unshakable joy for one another and so we too might be filled with an even greater joy (if that’s possible).

Paul starts with a plea for the people of Philippi to make His joy complete, “If there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, if you have any share in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete”. Paul here is speaking about the things that make for true unity. We are one body in Christ, we are bound to one another through love, we each have the singular Spirit in us, compassion and sympathy reach out and help us to understand the other. These four things together lead to a kind of unity and care for one another that we cannot experience without God, but through God can lead to far more than just unity. In fact, Paul speaks about some of these greater rewards but purposely diminishes them in His plea to help us see that we should all be living out this unity. Quickly though:

The encouragement of Christ, speaks to the way in which Jesus has humbled himself so drastically so that he might lift us up to greater heights than we can imagine

The consolation of love, speaks to the way in which God seeks to replace all of our losses with a far greater love.

A share in the Spirit, speaks to the way in which we have been given the fullness of God to live in us and that means the fullness of His joy, life and more.

Compassion and sympathy, speaks to the way in which God opens our eyes to truly see His love for a person and their needs, not just what they want, but how we can truly take care of them and it helps us to actually see who they are.

I wanted to briefly look at each of these because they are each incredible gifts that in themselves are great joys, but at the same time are also ways in which God is directing us to share that insurmountable joy with others.

So Paul goes into what it means to complete his joy and ultimately to give joy to others through the Holy Spirit. It means doing the same things that God, through the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit has done for us. As we have one singular Spirit, we can be of one mind, purpose, and love, embracing, conforming, and living in a singular goodness. As we have such a consolation of love, when God fills every loss with love, even His own servitude, weakness and death, we know we can serve others first, and that we don’t have to act out of ambition or conceit.

All of this joy in unity is founded in the humility, encouragement, and loving power of Jesus Christ of whom we have all heard and know the story. If we believe that Jesus Christ truly gave up His power as God to dwell among us and become a slave for us. If He willing died for us. Then if after giving up more than we can understand, He was restored and lifted up to a far greater height. What does that mean for our service and love? If we believe there is greater joy through Jesus’ sacrifice, it means that there is a far greater joy awaiting us in giving, sharing, and working for others in Godly humility than there is when we fight for ourselves.

In all of this, I hope you are beginning to see that there is a far greater joy in our God than anywhere else, but it starts with having our joy rest in him. In any moment of loss, we can remember and know that God will overcome, restore and even increase the joy through that loss, as if it was a kind of birthing pain. This is a joy that can never be taken away because it has overcome death through Jesus Christ. After we know that our joy can increase even more as we share that joy and all that God has given us with others. In our Holy Spirit-inspired unity and service our joy becomes others' joy and their joy becomes ours. In this we become surrounded by the joy of God and our joy can truly be complete as it encapsulates our lives. AMEN