CHRISTIAN JOY

Gal. 5:22

Morning Meditation 6/27/16

Verse 22 says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,”

I want us to consider the emotion of joy in the Christian life in this meditation. Adam was created in the image of God and as a result was in God’s likeness as he was originally created. This likeness was marred through sin in the garden and as a result there are only faint traces of that likeness remaining. Sin has affected the total man. Since emotion is a part of the man God created, it has been degraded so that there is little resemblance left. Salvation restores true joy to redeemed man. But it comes as a fruit of the Spirit not a work of the flesh.

The word “But” is a conjunction. It connects and shows contrast here to the “works of the flesh.” The works of the flesh originate in the fallen nature of man. The “fruit of the Spirit” originates in God and is the result of a healthy relationship between redeemed man and the Lord. Fruit is the result of a healthy plant doing what it does naturally. All I can do to help in the process is to see to the plant and keep it healthy. In the case of the fruit of the Spirit it is a matter of “Walking in the Spirit” as is brought out in verse 16 of Galatians 5.

Paul says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is . . . joy.” The attributes of God only tell us what God is like. Tozer says, “Christian Theology teaches that God in His essential nature is both inscrutable and ineffable. This by simple definition means that He is incapable of being searched into or understood, and that He cannot tell forth or utter what He is. This inability lies not in God but in the limitations of our creaturehood.” Tozer also says, “Now the Bible teaches that there is something in God which is like emotion. He experiences something which is like our love, something that is like our grief, that is like our joy.” The joy as a fruit of the Spirit is not the result of Christian entertainment. This seems to be the idea of most Christians today. Tozer says, “One of the very greatest calamities which sin has brought upon us is the debasement of our normal emotions. We laugh at things which are not funny; we find pleasure in acts which are beneath our human dignity; and we rejoice in objects which should have no place in our affections.” I wonder what Tozer or any of the old divines would say if they lived today.. There is a CD out now called The Best of Christian Comedy. This is entertainment at its best but it is not the “fruit of the Spirit.”

Zephaniah 3:17 says, “The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.” Verses like this serve to form our rational picture of what God is like. God feels something like our joy and what he feels makes him act very much as we would in a similar situation, i.e., he rejoices over his loved ones with joy and singing.

We find in Hebrews 12:2 that he speaks of the “joy that was set before him . . .” He says in the Parable of the Ninety and Nine “Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost” (Luke 15:4). The Bible says there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents. It also tells us that Jesus sung a hymn with the disciples at the Last Supper.

The joy which is the fruit of the Spirit is not the Holy Spirit stimulating the flesh. It is not natural. It originates in God and is the out working of his inwrought grace. It is the result of a relationship with God. The joy that is the fruit of the Spirit will produce joy in the life over things that are in harmony with or like God.

The same verse that speaks of “the joy that was set before him” also says that he “despised the shame” (Heb. 12:2). So the joy of Jesus was not affected by the shame and suffering of the cross. Paul and Silas were beaten and thrown into prison, and yet in the midst of the disruption of their lives and the pain of undeserved punishment the Bible says, “At midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God; and the prisoners heard them” (Acts 16:25). This was supernatural joy. There was nothing natural about it. They were not telling jokes to one another to get their minds off their suffering.

Paul, several years later is back in prison, he writes to those in Philippi and says in chapter one and verse four: “Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy.” This is a fruit of the Spirit. The circumstances of prison had not affected his joy.

Then in chapter four and verse four he says, “Rejoice in the Lord alway; and again I say, Rejoice.” The word “rejoice” is from the same root word as the word “joy” in Galatians 5:22. It is a present active imperative verb. The present tense means that Paul is speaking to them about a continuing attitude. The active voice means they must make a choice. The imperative mood is the mood of volition and command. Can you command a person to rejoice? It is not a command like a preacher stepping to the pulpit in a church and demanding that everybody laugh. But if the fruit of the Spirit is joy, it will be on display in the life of the believer who is “walking in the Spirit.”

If Satan attacks the believer in order to stop the joy, he can never be successful by changing his circumstances. You see Christian joy is not the result of good circumstances. It is supernatural. Paul and Silas rejoiced in prison. Jesus had joy as he faced the cross though he despised the shame. If Satan gets our joy, he will do it by breaking our fellowship with God. When fellowship is broken (not relationship) then the fruit disappears or dries up on the vine.

So the way to get joy restored is to come before God for cleansing. The way to get right with God is the confession of the wrong that broke the fellowship and being cleansed of it in the blood of Jesus (1 John 1:9). The one who seeks joy won’t get it. The one who gets right with God will. It is a fruit of the Spirit.

What Nehemiah said is still true: Neh. 8:10: “Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”

The Christian world is hungry for joy. But they want compromising preachers in the pulpit. This robs them of the opportunity of joy that is the fruit of the Spirit. Sin must be dealt with to have God’s joy. God’s way of bringing people to repentance is straight preaching. So instead of repentance they continue in sin, and to hide the absence of the “fruit of the Spirit,” they resort to Christian entertainment and back scratching and ear tickling messages. They come to church sad but leaved “feeling better about themselves” and “entertained” but totally bankrupt Spiritually.

May the Lord bless you.

In Christ

Bro. White