The Fruit of the Spirit is Joy

Galatians 5:22

You may be seated. Please turn
in your copy of the scriptures to Galatians 5.22. If you’re using the Pew Bible,
that’s page 975. We’ve been studying Galatians
for several months now, and we’ve zeroed in on the fruit of the
spirit, fruit singular, but with nine different fruits, I suppose
you could say. It’s all one fruit, but many
fruits. You could look at it as a cluster, a husk of many
fruits, but it all comes to us as we are united to Jesus and
living and abiding in him. I am the vine, you are the branches.
Any of these fruit of the spirits we speak of, you can’t get them
humanly. They come by faith in Jesus. They come connected to the vine,
the Lord, and they are only produced in the lives of those that the
Lord is connected to and feeding with his life-giving sap. And so here are the word of the
living God. The fruit of the spirit is joy. Let’s look to God in prayer.
Lord, open our eyes to see wonderful things in your word so that we
can be full of joy for the right reasons. We pray your grace now
in Jesus’ name, amen. If you were given a blank sheet
of paper and ask this question, what brings you joy? I would
imagine that many of us would have on our list people and places
and things and ideas. People, my grandchildren bring
me joy. My friends bring me joy, places,
life’s a beach, lake life. You see all this on people’s
back windows of their cars, their bumper stickers. Joy is in the
mountains, some might say. Or how about things? You know,
you roll up your garage door and there’s your shiny vehicle,
my pride and my joy. Struck a chord there, didn’t
I? Or how about ideas? What brings me joy? World peace
or universal love, something like that. And I think if you
began to look at this list, and I’ll say something more about
this list in a moment, but if you were to look at this list
and you were to define joy by a string of pleasantries, people,
places, things, and ideas, and perhaps these things without
disruption, these things without any speed bumps, these things
without any sin, sickness, death, darkness, losses, or crosses,
you might say, that’s a life of joy. These are joys in this
life. These are things that we might
be given by God, the gift giver, to enjoy. God made the world
and everything in it, and so people and places, And things
and even ideas are all under God’s creation and his sovereignty. He made these things. You look
at the world and everything in it, and it’s a place of incredible
beauty. It’s a place of many wonderful
graces. And even in its cursed and sin-filled
condition, what a beautiful, wonderful world we live in. Can you imagine the new heavens?
Can you imagine the new earth when all things are made new?
All things are perfect and redeemed and wonderful. That’s where we
need to root our joy. Our supreme happiness is not
in the people and the places and the things and the ideas
of this earth. Though God made them and they’re wonderful, our
joy needs to be rooted in eternity. Our joy needs to be rooted in
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our joy needs to be rooted in
the chief end of life, which is to glorify God, but to enjoy
Him forever. When we come to the scriptures
and we hear the word joy, we’ve got to define it the way God
does, the way the Bible does. If you got out your Webster’s
dictionary or pulled something up on your phone, you would probably
find two words, happiness and pleasure. And those aren’t terrible. but we define joy biblically. We define it as something more,
something better, something rooted, not in this life, but in the
life to come. And so joy is both a noun, a
state of being, but it’s also a verb, rejoice, have joy, be
joyful. You could say the beatitude word,
blessed are, or happy are, joyful are those who have their hopes
set on God and rooted in eternity. I did a little unscientific word
search, just using the ESV, didn’t look at Hebrew, didn’t look at
the Greek of the New Testament, just our English standard versions.
That’s what a lot of us use. And 202 times, that’s a bunch,
202 times you’ll find the command and it’s a command. Rejoice,
rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in his goodness. Rejoice
in his provision. Rejoice in hard times. Rejoice
in all circumstances. Rejoice, rejoice 202 times in
the whole ESV Bible. And then you’ll find rejoice
and be glad paired together. That’s in there about 76 times.
And so you could say biblically, you could say theologically,
you could say practically for the Christian life, rejoicing
and being happy and being glad in the right things. is something
we need to work at, something we need to practice, something
we need to cultivate in our lives. And that’s very different, isn’t
it, than the joy of man. And I want us to think for a
moment about the joy of man. If man’s chief end is to glorify
God and to enjoy him forever, or maybe you’re a larger catechism
person, it adds another little phrase. What is man’s chief and
highest end? Man’s chief and highest end is
to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. You think about that
in this life. We should glorify God in this
life and enjoy him in this life. But we also realize there’s a
next life. There’s a world to come. There’s
a life to come. There’s eternity. When we stand at the graveside
of our loved ones and we hear the words of the shorter catechism,
question 37, what benefits do believers receive at their death. The souls of believers are at
their death, made perfect in holiness and do immediately pass
into glory. But their bodies, being united
to Christ, still rest in their graves until the resurrection. The next question gives us a
bit more. What are the benefits to believers
at the resurrection? Well, their bodies will be raised
up from the grave where they have rested with Jesus. and they
will be openly acknowledged and acquitted on the day of judgment.
And their bodies and their souls being united together, catch
this now, will enjoy the fullness of God for all eternity. Your
definition of joy changes, doesn’t it? When you put away Webster’s
dictionary and you pick up the scriptures and you see that the
command to be joy, have joy, rejoice, The state of being that
you can have connected to Jesus is to be a joyful person. You
begin to see how wonderful the gift of joy is. Remember that
we lost it. Adam and Eve in the garden were
happy and they were holy and they were full of joy as they
fellowshiped with God. But when they listened to the
voice of the serpent and ate the fruit, they lost paradise. They lost the garden. They lost
fellowship with God. They lost their righteousness
and they were exiled out of the garden, never to return again. Well, at least until we get to
the book of Revelation and see Jesus has made a way, but they
were exiled into futility. They lived a life of restlessness. They lived a life that had no
joy, but only sorrow and thorns and thistles and pain and strife. And so when we look at the joy
of man, we realize it’s only superficial. We realize that
it’s a front, it’s a mask, that really the only true joy there
is, is to be found in Jesus. And it’s to rest in him and no
longer be restless. And so the chief end of man under
sin and death and Satan, man’s chief end is to glorify and enjoy
himself. Do what makes you happy. Follow
your heart. Do all the, well, the slogans
of the day. The pursuit of this world will
end at your death. Y’all have seen the TV commercial,
I think. It’s a, I think a commercial
for pet food. And the children are there at
the reading of the will and the cat gets it all. And that’s sort
of, I think, a funny way of looking at what the writer of Proverbs
says. You know, a man can toil his whole life. A man can amass
wealth his whole life. A family can accumulate things
only to die. And the cat gets it. That’s a biblical TV commercial
in some way, isn’t it? We can pursue the world and the
cat gets it all. King Solomon. was a wealthy man. He experienced everything. He
owned everything. He had everything. In fact, we
can say he had it in excess. And at the end of his life, he
writes his wisdom book. And he says, all is vanity. All
is meaningless. And then he gives us some words
of wisdom. Fear God and keep his commandments. That’s the
sum of life. And if you fear God and keep
his commandments, you will not have earthly joy, but you will
have godly. and eternal joy. I can remember
when I was a kid, we bought our first VCR and over there on Webb
Avenue, Ed Kelly’s, maybe some of you remember it. I think it’s
the plasma donation center now placed with the rounded roof,
but we went over to Ed Kelly’s. One of our neighbors was a appliance
and TV sales rep. So we went in there to get a
VCR and he says, you know, what kind of TV do you have? And my
dad probably being cheap said, Oh, we got a TV. That’s okay.
And one of us piped up and said, we got a black and white TV.
Well, what are you going to buy a VCR for if you don’t have a
color TV? And I think life for the non-Christian
is in black and white. But when you come to faith in
Jesus and realize all that God has done for you in Christ and
all that Christ has procured for you at the cross, and that
you have all these blessings by the power of the Holy Spirit,
life all of a sudden is in technicolor. Life all of a sudden is in HD. Life all of a sudden is in not
one of those 999 TVs, but it’s in the $10,000 one that’s megapixels. And it’s got the quick refresh
rate. Some of you know what I’m speaking
of. You gotta have those for sports and all. It’s more vivid. It’s more wonderful and more
colorful. But life without God, life without
God is meaningless. Life without God is colorless.
It’s temporary, it’s fleeting. Everything you earn will be eaten
by moth. And everything you purchase will
be destroyed at the last day. But God gives us so much more
as Christians. C.S. Lewis, in his reflections
on his past life as a pagan and his present life, then when he
penned these words as a Christian, he said, you know, so many people
are satisfied with making mud pies. So many people are happy
with a little bread, a little circus, a little sex, a little
money, and a little satisfaction in this life when God has offered
us so much more. And I think very sadly, the American
church has wed itself with the American dream. If you listen
to a lot of preaching in America over the last 150 years, it’s
come to Jesus and all your problems will go away. More on that in
a minute. but it’s also come to Jesus and
you’ll be healthy and wealthy. And that’s often not the case
for God’s people. Read church history, read Hebrews
chapter 11, the people of faith. We are strangers, we are exiles,
we are sojourners, and we shouldn’t drive our tent pegs too deep
into the earth because God very often says, up, move, go here,
go there, and then he takes us away to heaven forever. If you,
Pursue the joy of man. You will have a lot of sorrow
in this life. And so that’s the joy of man. Let’s think next
about the joy of God. If man’s chief end. And highest end is to glorify
God and to enjoy him forever. If that’s got why God made us
in the beginning, he made the world and everything in it took
what was formless and void and he formed it and he fashioned
it and he filled it. He made man and he made him, uh, put
him in a garden where he could worship him and work for him
and spread the glory of God across the face of the earth. Just because
Satan came in and sold a bill of lies to Adam and Eve, and
they took the bait and they ate. And instead of being happy and
holy, they became sinful and miserable. Just because that
took place doesn’t mean God says, well, I gave it a try. No, remember
God and his eternal decrees. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
what will bring us the most glory? Let’s make a world and everything
in it. Let’s make it beautiful and wonderful. And let’s put
man in the midst of it to work it, make it fruitful, to keep
it, to protect it. And let’s let the generations
come after and spread the glory of God across the face of the
earth. Just because Satan came in and
tempted and they fell, doesn’t mean God’s plan was over. What
will bring us the most glory? Will permit evil. Will permit
this sin and Jesus, you’ll go at the right time. And you’ll live the life Adam
should have lived. You’ll obey the way Adam should have obeyed.
And you’ll die the death it will take to atone for the sins of
God’s people. And so in Jesus, we have down
payments on this new creation. The same God who spoke and created
at the beginning now speaks and recreates and makes all things
new. And we see little bitty down
payments on that. The big things are to come in the last day.
But we see the end of God’s work of redemption. That’s to gather
all his children in the heavens. That’s to gather all his children
in the new Jerusalem, the city of heaven, the city that is above,
where there is no need for sun, for God is its light. And where
in that city there is no more pain, no more sorrow, no more
hardship, no more thorns and thistles and all the rest. And
it’s in that city at the end, where the joy of God will be
complete, As if it was missing anything, it couldn’t. But his
joy and redemption will be made complete. As we read from Zephaniah,
there’s no more war. He’s gathered all his people
into his city and he sings over them. When I was a kid, we used
to sing, I think, I don’t know for sure, but I think we used
to sing a lot of the Calvary chapel movement songs from out
of California. And we would sing very often
on Wednesday nights, Zephaniah 3.17, the Lord your God is in
your midst. He is a mighty one to save. He
will rejoice over you with shouts of joy. Etch that into your head,
brothers and sisters. This world is full of sorrows,
but heaven is full of godly joy where God rejoices over the blood
of the lamb of his son, who sought and saved the lost and brought
them home. Heaven is going to be the fulfillment
of God’s covenant promise. I will be your God and you will
be my people. We sing of this perhaps around
Christmas time, Advent time, when we think of Jesus, of the
Father’s love begotten before our worlds were made. We think
of the joy and the love and the Trinity and how There was joy
in the father as he sent the son to accomplish the mission
of redemption. We think of Jesus who says for
the joy set before him. That’s you. He went to the cross
when he was praying in agony in the garden, when he was sweating
drops of blood because he didn’t fear the nails and the crown
and the beatings and the cries of indignity from the people. He feared the wrath of God. He
feared the cup he was to drink down to the dregs the next day
at the cross. But it was for the joy set before
him. It was for that great day when lost lambs are found and
brought into the fold. It was for that day when the
lost coin was found after the house was swept clean. It was
for that day when the prodigal sons all came home because they
came to their senses. and realized in the father’s
house there was love. And that’s the joy of God. That’s the Trinitarian joy that
can be produced in you by the spirit. The fruit of the spirit
is joy and it is Holy Spirit wrought. It is not something
you go out and drum up and you don’t buy it by the gallon or
at the big discount warehouse store. It’s something you get
by abiding in Jesus. It comes by faith. It comes by
being united to Jesus Christ. It comes by living a God-centered,
God-oriented life. It comes by seeking first the
kingdom and the values of God. So we’ve thought about the joy
of the world. That’s actually sorrow. We think about the joy
of God, what a standard that is. Let’s think about the joy
of the Christian. If you’re a Christian who has
a firm grip on reality, You understand this world. You understand it’s
sin-filled and it’s cursed and it’s broken and it’s full of
darkness and all kinds of wicked things. But you also have a firm
grasp of what the scripture tells us. That there is a greater reality. There is a next life, a next
world that means more glories are to come. And this world is
passing. We sing from time to time about
the solid joys. and the lasting treasures that
none but Zion’s children know. Glorious things of thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God. When we get to heaven, we are
going to behold God’s face forever. What a great picture of happiness
and gladness and rejoicing. God will be rejoicing over us.
God will be rejoicing in the work of his son. And we will
be rejoicing in our God and our savior. And that’s what we will
do for eternity in the new heavens and the new earth. Paradise lost
has now been regained. But we live life still on this
earth. We live a Romans 8 life where
there’s all kinds of aches and pains. There’s all kinds of thorns
and thistles. There’s all kinds of heartaches
and losses and crosses. And we get to Romans chapter
8 and it tells us that there is no condemnation for those
who are in Jesus. Sins are forgiven. It tells us
what we have in the spirit that we’re adopted into God’s family.
It tells us that nothing in this life, life, death, people, places,
things, ideas, persecution, famine, they can’t get ahold of us because
we’re safe in God. And we, we long for redemption
just as creation longs for redemption, but we’re able to live life and
live in color. We’re able to see beyond the pains and the
hardships and the losses and the crosses because in our minds,
we have it firm and fixed. God is on his throne. In our
minds, we have it firm and fixed by faith that Jesus has bought
us with his precious blood and he has paid for all our sins
and that not a hair can fall from our head without it being
his will. and that everything in this life is for our good
and for his glory. We realize that we’re adopted
in his family and have all the rights and privileges as sons.
We realize that he is sanctifying us. He’s making us more like
Jesus, making us holy. There’s a wonderful question
in the shorter catechism. What are the blessings? What
are the benefits of knowing that you’re justified, adopted and
sanctified? And there’s five things that
come up, assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience. The third
one speaks to us today, joy in the Holy Ghost. And then there’s
increase of grace and perseverance to the end. but a blessing of
your justification, sins forgiven, obedience of Jesus credited to
your account, no condemnation, a benefit of your adoption, being
brought into God’s family, all the rights and privileges, the
robe, the ring, the shoes, the fattened calf, this my son was
lost and now is found, and the benefits of sanctification growing
in holiness. One of the benefits or the offshoots
of that is joy, in the Holy Spirit. That’s why we like to say saved
people sing. Saved people sing amazing grace.
How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me because we understand
the fall. We understand the ravaging effects
of sin and all that is done for us. And so we, we sing of amazing
grace because we were down here and have been brought up here
and there is more yet to come. I love the pattern of the Heidelberg
Catechism we read from on Sunday nights on occasion. And we speak
from question one and two on Sunday mornings on occasion from
questions one and two about our only hope in life and in death.
But that catechism follows 3G pattern, guilt, grace, and gratitude. And our gratitude wells up in
us when we realize all that we are in Jesus Christ. When Jesus sent his disciples
out in the gospels, he sent them out with power to heal. He sent
them out with power to do all kinds of mighty deeds in his
name. And they go and they come back and they’re fired up. And
they say to Jesus, you wouldn’t believe it. Well, I think he
would. You won’t believe this, Jesus. Even the demons listen
to our voices. And that’s what they were rejoicing
in. And of course, Jesus, the party pooper, you know, Mr. Doctrine and Mr. Bible, he says,
I got a better reason for you to rejoice. It’s that your name
is written in heaven. And brothers and sisters, the
joy of the Christian is knowing for sure by faith and because
of the ongoing assurance we receive as we abide in the vine and we
are the branches, the assurance we get that we
belong to Jesus, that our name is indeed written in heaven,
is a wonderful thing. And that is a good lead-in to
this final, well, next to final point, and that’s joy and darkness. We’ve talked about the world’s
joy, man’s joy. We’ve talked about God’s joy.
We’ve talked about the joy of the Christian, but we need to say something
about joy and darkness because they go together. Life is not
rosy. Life has not come to Jesus and
all your problems go away. No, in fact, it’s come to Jesus
and the problems begin. It’s because you’re against the
world who hates you because you’re Jesus’ child, his brother. The world hates you because you
love God. The world hates you because you’re a kingdom of God
person now and not a kingdom of this earth person. And you get to that wonderful
place in Romans chapter eight. Where Paul says, I consider the
present sufferings of this life as nothing, for there’s great
things to come. Things I can’t imagine, things
I haven’t seen, things I don’t even begin to be able to speak
about. There’s far more for us than our sicknesses and our setbacks. Jesus seems to teach his disciples
and us, you’ll be persecuted for my name, but blessed are
you, happy are you. You may be martyred by your captors,
You know, it’s very interesting to read the stories of martyrs.
Many of them went to the stake or to the gallows or to the chopping
block or to wherever singing songs. and being filled full
of joy. In fact, I read this week of
one martyr. I forgot who he is and what his
name was, but he gets up to the gallows and they’re putting the
rope around his neck and they want to cut off his beard for
practical reasons. He says, no, leave that. My beard
has committed no treason. And he went to his death for
Christ with joy and even a little levity because he knew to be
absent from this world was to be present with the father. We
think of Stephen when he was stoned, as he was being brutally
stoned by the persecutors, including Paul. He was gazing up into heaven
where he saw what was to come. And he even said, Father, forgive
them, for they don’t understand the thing they are doing. And
so we can have joy and darkness when we’re slighted because we
hold conservative Christian views. We can have joy when we’re bearing
our crosses. And God is bringing us to a place
of humility. We can have joy when we’re being
rebuked by God, when we’re being chastised by the Father, when
he is purifying us in a hard and difficult way. Worldly joy
says no to these things. These are joy stealers. Worldly
joy says this isn’t part of the plan. You’re doing it wrong.
But God says, sometimes I sanctify your hardships. I sanctify them
to bless you and to shape you. You know, we live in America
where I want to say for the last hundred years, we’ve been hearing
the power of positive thinking from the pulpit. And you can’t
say anything about blood and death and pain and sorrow and
hardship. But I love what CS Lewis says. These are God’s megaphones.
And if you take away the hard and only do the positive, you
strip away from God, his greatest tool in his sanctifying you toolbox.
And so we will have crosses to bear. We will have hardships
to endure. But like Stephen, we have a glimpse
of heaven. Like Paul and Silas who cast
out the demons from that young slave girl in Philippi. And they
basically ruined the trade of the men who were using these
possessed people to make money. They were beaten and put in jail.
And in that Philippian jail, they were singing and they were
praying and the people wondered. And the Philippian jailer says,
what’s going on with you two? And as he washed their wounds,
they told him of Jesus and the joy that living for Jesus brings. And we know the rest of the story.
The Philippian jailer came to Jesus and he and his whole household
were brought into the covenant community of the church. Job
saw beyond the sores. He saw beyond the losses and
the crosses, and he saw his God in great wonder. I want to mention
one last thing to you, and that’s the idea of cultivating joy. I know we’re two months into
the new year. Some of you have given up on
your diet plans. Some of you have given up on your going to
the YMCA. But we know we eat, we overeat, and we gain weight,
and that’s not good. And, you know, I have a friend
who talked about the Slim Slow diet. Slim Fast is the drink.
Slim Slow is a Snickers bar. That was his joke. Or we say,
I’m watching what I eat. You know, we watch it as it goes
in. And we know that if we overeat
or if we eat the wrong things, we get overweight. But I want
to tell you this, not so with Scripture. You can eat all you
want. It is the true, all you can eat
buffet, where you come to the word, you come to the sacraments,
you come to worship, you come to fellowship, you come to prayer,
you come to the things that God has given us, and you can even
bring Ziplocs and take home containers. Try that at a buffet, they’ll
kick you out. But in God’s house, there is no need for temperance. There is no need for self-control. The more you eat, the healthier
and the more joyful you get. So perhaps you wanna revise your
list. I asked you a few moments ago, what brings you joy? And yes, it may be persons or
people and places and things and ideas, that’s great, God
made them. But there should be a higher joy. And that is the
joy that we will have forever with God the Father, God the
Son, God the Holy Spirit, our maker and our redeemer. and our friend. Look to that
for your joy. Amen. May it be so, let’s pray. Lord, pry our fingers off of
the idols of our heart. Change our allegiances, change
our desires. Lord, we are to enjoy the things
of this life, but with thanksgiving to you, there to be sanctified
by prayer and enjoyed, yes, richly, this is your world, but let us
look to the greater and higher joy, eternal joy, rooted in you,
God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, lover and redeemer of our souls
who will one day rejoice at that great family reunion when all
your blood-bought children are brought home. Hear us, help us
in this hour to think right and true and good, we pray in Jesus’
holy name, amen.