Solid Joys and Lasting Treasure

Paul Oliver

Are you a joyful person? I don’t mean do you walk around with a big grin permanently fixed on your face or even do you possess an upbeat positive temperament, but are you a person who knows real heartfelt joy in your life?

If we are Christians, then we should know that joy in our lives. It is God’s desire that we should be joyful people. He didn’t create us to be wretched and miserable, but holy and happy, and joy was one of the things that characterised the original creation. I love that passage in Job when God is challenging Job and asks him for his memories of when all the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy (Job 38:7). Angels saw what God had done and shouted for joy! No doubt Adam and Eve experienced a similar joy as they observed that very good creation, and took up their positions as God’s vice-regents over it, enjoyed each other and, supremely, enjoyed God. Of course, sin has smashed the experience of our joy and brought in disappointment, sorrow, tears, guilt, condemnation and death, but God’s work of redemption through Jesus Christ has reinstated that joy and taken it to even greater heights. This joy doesn’t belong merely to the future; we should be shouting for joy now!

It is not the case that we should just get tantalizing tastes of joy when we are singing our favourite hymn on a Sunday evening. This joy ought to be something which is ever present in our lives. Paul writing from his prison cell commands us to Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! (Philippians 4:4). Joy for the Christian is clearly to be our normal experience, not our occasional pleasure. We must put Paul’s teaching alongside that of Jesus who said, These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full (John 15:11). God is holding out to us full joy always! Perhaps some of us are falling somewhat short of the joy that is God’s intention for us .

How is it then that people who live in a real world with real trials and tribulations can rejoice always and know joy which is full? The secret lies in the source of our joy. The Bible instructs us to find it in the Lord and in all that he has done for us.

There are of course many legitimate sources of joy in our lives. God has given us richly all things to enjoy (1 Timothy 6:17). There are immense joys associated with our families and friends, with health and freedom, with holidays and hobbies, with success and victories, and these joys are real and precious. However if the joy of our life is resting on these, it is on fragile foundations. That joy can be shaken by the crises of life like illness, bereavement, redundancy and accidents. That is why the Bible fixes our joy in the unchanging God. Isn’t this what the prophet Habakkuk shows us in the Old Testament? Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; Though the labour of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food; Though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls- Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation (Habakkuk 3:17-18).

I suppose the 21^st century equivalent of that would go something like this: though the interest rates keep rising, and the pension fund keeps shrinking, though recession grips the global economy and wars trouble the world, though England go out on penalties and the Australians retain the Ashes, though revival doesn’t come and maybe I will never live to see it, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation!

So let us look at what we do have to rejoice in.

1 Our names are written in heaven

There was an occasion when the disciples returned to Jesus overjoyed that they were experiencing amazing success in their ministry. Even the demons were subject to them and it seemed as though spiritual success was piled on top of spiritual success. However Jesus said, Do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice that your names are written in heaven (Luke 10:20). A Christian serving his Lord in the driest corner of this barren country has precisely the same reason to rejoice with inexpressible joy as an apostle. Our names are written by God in heaven in the Book of Life! What an honour! God in his sovereign grace wrote my name where by rights it should never have been written and I wouldn’t exchange that for the longest entry in ‘Who’s Who’! As I write this I am overwhelmed with joy! One day all that will matter is whether or not our names are written in that book.

2 Our sins are forgiven

Anyone who can remember the agony of conviction of sin and the feeling of despair and guilt, will rejoice that they no longer carry that load for Christ has carried it for them. King David knew much of failure and conviction, and yet he also knew of the blessedness of the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered (Psalm 32:1). Horatio Spafford was able to rejoice in this even in the midst of tremendous personal loss as he wrote,

‘My sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought!

My sin, not in part but the whole,

Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more;

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!’

Our sins are forgiven and will never be reinstated. That fills me with joy.

3 We know God as Father

This is bringing us to the heart of our joy. It is in the Lord. We cry to the eternal, infinite, holy God, Abba, Father! Do we begin to realise how privileged we are? In the New Covenant God has said, I will be a Father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters (2 Corinthians 6:18). We need to explore that relationship from both sides. God rejoices over his children! He will rejoice over you with gladness, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing (Zephaniah 3:17). He loves us infinitely more than the best father on earth and we are to rejoice and delight ourselves in him.

4. We know the Son of God as our Lord and Saviour

The one who will judge the world is the one who shared our humanity, provided our righteousness, took our punishment, conquered our enemy, secured our victory, guaranteed our resurrection and promised to return for us that we might be in his presence where there is fulness of joy.

5. We know the Holy Spirit as the Paraclete

God has come alongside us - and indeed into us - to help, comfort, teach and renew. Every day it is his design that we should be more and more like Jesus and as that happens there will be more love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control and what was the other one? Oh yes, JOY!