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THE JOY OF THE LORD Part 1 of 3
Chapter one
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say,
Rejoice. Let all men know your forbearance.
The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about
anything, but in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving, let your re-
quests be made known to God. And the peace
of God, which passes all understanding, will
keep your hearts and your minds in Christ
Jesus.
Philippians 4:4-7
Now there are many ways in which we can express the joy
of the Lord. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we have
to walk around grinning from ear to ear or make ourselves
say, “Praise the Lord,” every five minutes. If that joy
is in our heart it makes all the difference in the world
in our outlook,
our attitude toward people,
our habits,
even in our physical and mental health.
The farmer who enjoys his farming goes at his work in a
very different way from the farmer who hates it. And
the woman who enjoys her husband and her children is a
lot more pleasant to live with than the one who detests
her situation and feels sorry for herself.
When the Messiah was born, He was born to bring us joy.
“Behold, I bring you good tidings of great
joy which shall be to all people...”
And when He began to proclaim His message, He called it
a gospel which means ‘good news’.
It was understood
that anybody who would reach out and take hold of this
good news would have joy.
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure
hidden in a field which a man found and
covered up and then in his joy he goes
and sells all that he has and buys the
People who begin to follow Jesus will always, always
find that they are not only given a cross to carry;
they are also given unspeakable joy.
“That my joy may be in you and that your
joy may be full...I will see you again and
your hearts will rejoice and your joy no
man will take from you.”
And this joy is not just for two or three lucky people
out of every hundred believers, it is to be the normal
state of the believer in the midst of all the hassles
of life.
If you have Jesus in your heart, you have joy.
If you don’t have joy something’s wrong.
And yet, how often, in spite of our earnestness,
our desire to be faithful
our attempts to pray,
the joy is missing. There is a heaviness in our hearts.
It gets so bad sometimes that our friends in the world,
whom we should be comforting, come by to cheer us up.
“Look man, I don’t understand your faith
but does it have to make you so depressed
all the time?”
We know something’s missing. We know we ought to have
that joy, so we walk down the road in pursuit of it,
and we are met by a man who seems to be able to read
our mind.
“Good morning, friend, I can see that you’re
looking for joy. The lack of it is written
on your face, I have just what you need.
Come with me and believe my
gospel of prosperity.”
“Prosperity? Did Jesus preach a gospel
of prosperity?”, you say.
“Look, friend, the reason you’re so down
in the dumps all the time is because you’re
not prospering. Circumstances are against
you. Look at all the things you lack!
Why, you can’t even afford to travel by
Greyhound bus! Now, if you will believe
my gospel circumstances will begin to
smile on you and you won’t travel by Grey-
hound anymore, you’ll be going by jet,
first-class; and those rags you have on
will be replaced with purple and fine linen.
You’ll have joy in your heart.”
“And that will give me joy?”, you ask.
“Of course!” answers the prosperity gospel
Just then you look through the door of this man’s house
and, behold, you see all the things he promises! People
in there are well-dressed, eating wonderfully. The
temperature’s just right, there’s no danger in sight.
But as you look in their eyes you see no joy. They’re
vacant. And in your heart you can
hear a voice which
says, “In the world you will have tribulation, but be of
good cheer I have overcome the world.” So you hurry on.
“Hold it! Hold it!”, says a large woman stand-
ing beneath a beautiful golden arch. “You’re
looking for joy, I can see it on your face.
You’ve come to the right place.”
“What do you have to offer me, ma’am?”, you say.
“I offer you the celebrity gospel,” she says.
“Celebrity gospel? Did Jesus preach such a
thing?”’, you say.
“Listen, if you will believe my gospel,” she
says, “you will be known and admired and liked
by many people. And isn’t that what you’ve
always wanted?”
“But did Jesus offer that kind of gospel? Is
that the joy Jesus offers?”, you ask.
“Oh, friend, you have a bad image of yourself,”
answers the celebrity gospel lady. “Now we
have to build that up. Come, we will make you
more important.”
Just then you look through her beautiful golden arch
and there you see people dressed up in the most out-
landish costumes, standing on golden pedestals, every
one with a smile frozen on his face. But their eyes
are void of joy. And you hear a voice that says,
“He that exalteth himself shall be abased
but he that humbleth himself shall be
exalted.”
So you hurry on down the road.
You’ve hardly gone a hundred yards before you hear a
voice that says,
“Over here, baby!”
There stands a man in front of the doorway of a build-
ing that looks like a Super
Fitness Center.
“Hurry up, get in here! Don’t you know
those streets are dangerous? You can’t
handle it out there! You’re too weak!
No wonder you don’t have any joy. I offer
you the gospel of power. And if you will
believe my gospel, you will bend destiny
to your will, you will make things happen
and nobody will push you around any more.
Then you will have joy.”
You look through the doorway and see the spiritual
power-seekers learning their spiritual Kung-Fu. On their
faces is determination. Their jaws are set. But their
eyes reveal no joy. You hurry away and sigh with great
relief as you realize how close you came to falling right
into the trap....which promises that if you have the power
to push other people around you’ll have joy.
Suddenly the road comes to an abrupt end at a stone wall.
There’s a small door in the wall. Beside the door stands
a man who greets you by name and says,
“Welcome! We’ve been looking for you. The
only one in all the world who can give you
the joy you’re looking for is on the other
side of that door. But let me make clear to
you He will not offer you prosperity, He
does not promise to make you a celebrity,
nor does He promise you power to dominate
other people’s lives. If you will come
with Him you will have joy. But the joy
He offers is never doctored with the allure-
ments of this world; power, popularity,
prosperity. It’s the pure joy of simply
knowing Jesus,”
You think it over and you decide to walk through the
door. And the minute you step through that door you
begin to learn four lessons:
1. The joy our hearts crave is the joy of believing in Jesus.
In this you rejoice, though now for a little
while you may have to suffer various trials
so that the genuineness of your faith, more
precious than gold, which though perishable
is tested by fire, may redound to praise
and glory and honor at the revelation of
Jesus Christ. Without having seen him you
love him; though you do not now see him
you believe in him and rejoice with unutter-
able and exalted joy.
All the things that the false prophets offer in addition
to Jesus are as nothing compared with the joy of knowing
Him. Do we not find as we look at our own experience
that the most magnificent thrills and pleasures which
the mind can conjure are as refuse compared with the sur-
passing worth, the unspeakable joy, of knowing Jesus, and being found in Him?
Those who think that you have to spice up the gospel
of Jesus Christ by adding to it the allurements of
this world are revealing to you the fact that they
themselves have not yet come to know the joy that is
found in sheer belief in Jesus. In His name, I promise
every reader of these words that if you, today,
will put your life at the feet of Jesus and surrender
it into His hands, you will have joy.
2.
The joy our hearts crave is the joy of fellowship
with the cross of Jesus, which often begins with
sorrow but always ends with gladness of heart.
“Ye now, therefore, have sorrow but I will
see you again and your hearts will rejoice
and your joy no one will take from you....
“As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing....
“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery
ordeal which comes upon you to prove you,
as though something strange were happening
to you. But rejoice in so far as you
share Christ’s suffering....’’
Most of us are in some way experiencing pain,
pain concerning your loved one,
pain over one of your children,
pain over your own failures.
Our message is not, “Stop having pain! Cheer up! What’s
the matter with you!” Our message is rather, “Let that
very pain bring you into fellowship with Jesus on His
cross, and your sorrow will be changed into joy.”
So many people today are being deceived by a gospel which
tells them to run from the pain. Thereby they are being
cheated of the very thing that will bring them joy and
make their lives fruitful. Don’t run from your pain,
but let that pain be the means by which you come into
fellowship with Jesus and your sorrow will be turned into
joy.
3.
The joy our hearts crave is the joy of laboring in
the Master’s Vineyard.
“My meat is to do the will of Him who sent me
and to accomplish his work,” said Jesus.
And when He calls it His meat, what is that but His joy?
When the laborers in the vineyard are finally hired from
their idleness in the marketplace how happy they are.
One of the reasons many of us are so discontented and so
unsettled and cynical is because we are idle. Maybe we
have enough to pay our bills. Perhaps we have enough to
buy groceries and things we want, but if we’re idle we’ll
never have joy.
There are folks who are retired from their formal work,
living on a pension or social security. Yet they get
up every morning and fill the day with meaningful work.
They’re doing something. And there are so many who are
young and relatively able-bodied, (though they make all
kinds of excuses with their aches and pains), who aren’t
doing anything. They’re not working, they’re not apply-
ing themselves, and they wonder why their lives are so
empty. Pick up something to do. If you can't find a
formal job, make sure at least you’re looking for a job.
Do something! You will never have joy...never, until
you’re working in some way. Likewise, you’ve been called to a ministry. Don’t just sit around and listen to
the gospel and go to Bible studies! Take the
the Lord has given you and do something
- Plant those seeds,
- Go out into that harvest,
- Pick some of those grapes, - Go out there and do something or
it will rot
4.
The joy our hearts crave is the joy of knowing that
our Lord has prepared a place for us. The Father’s
house is waiting.
Rejoice not that spirits are subject to you
but that your names are written in heaven.
What a relief comes when we begin to see that this life
is not all there is. “If in this life only we have
hope, we are of all men most miserable.” But now we
begin to see beyond this life and we begin to fix our
hearts there.
“Grant we beseech thee,” says the ancient
collect, “that our hearts may there be fixed
where true joys are to be found...that thou
being our ruler and guide, we may so pass
through things temporal that we lose not the
things eternal.”
There’s no reason why every reader of these words can’t
take hold of joy.
All we have to do is reach out and get it. But re-
member what kind of joy it is,
it’s the joy of believing in Jesus,
the joy of having fellowship with Him
in His suffering and His cross,
the joy of labor with Him,
the joy of knowing that because of Him the
Father’s house is waiting.
God help us in the midst of a world so full of twisted
gospels to settle for nothing less than the real thing ---
the joy that is found unmixed and only in Jesus Himself.
Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say,
Rejoice. Let all men know your forbearance.
The Lord is at hand, Have no anxiety about
anything, but in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving, let your re-
quests be made known to God. And the peace
of God, which passes all understanding, will
keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus,
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