There's only one thing. One thing that legitimately Should steal your joy. What is it? sin and it shouldn't steal it for very long because you immediately should what? confess that sin, And rejoice.
In God's Forgiveness. Welcome to Grace to You with the Bible teaching of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. On this Friday, perhaps wrapping up another work week, has you feeling, well, maybe not unhappy, but not necessarily joyful either. Of course, you've probably faced many harder challenges, an accident perhaps, or the loss of a job, or the death of a loved one.
And then, especially, you may have wondered: what does it mean to rejoice in the Lord always? What does that sort of joy look like? Is it a constant smile, a happy outlook? What?
Well, today on Grace to You, John MacArthur considers what Scripture says about the issue of joy. As you'll see, joy is a fundamental Christian attitude. It's one of the pillars of Christian character, and that's the name of John's current series.
So with today's lesson. Here's John. We've talked about how the life of the church flows through certain attitudes, spiritual attitudes, like faith and obedience and love and humility and unity and of course forgiveness. And I want to talk about another one of those. Turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.
There would be a number of places in the scripture we could go to pick up this next spiritual attitude that should characterize the church. There could be a lot of scriptures. In fact, most notably, the book of Philippians. would be a place to go. Because it rings this chime again and again.
But I want us to go to 1 Thessalonians because it's so concise and it's so inescapable and it's so direct. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 16, we read this very short verse. Rejoice always. That's it. In fact, in the original language, the adverb comes first.
And so it goes like this, always, and the Command is in the present tense, so the The latter part would be always continue to rejoice. Always be rejoicing.
Now, that is the command of verse 16, and the attitude I want to talk about is joy. Joy. There's plenty of reason in the world in which we live to be sad. Distressed, disturbed, upset, concerned, anxious, stressed out. Full of Fear.
Doubt. But not for the Christian. We are commanded to rejoice. Always. And that's not An isolated command.
17 times in Paul's letter to the Philippians, he talks about joy. Just a few of those come to mind. Philippians chapter 2. Even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. And you too rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me no matter what's going on.
Even if I am a prisoner and even if I might lose my life and wind up being a sacrifice to get the gospel to you, I rejoice. I share my joy with you. I expect you to rejoice and share your joy with me. In chapter 3, verse 1 of Philippians, finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. In chapter 4, verse 4, rejoice in the Lord always.
And again, I will say, rejoice. We are commanded to rejoice. We are commanded to have joy. I'm going to make a statement now that might seem a A little bit hard, if not impossible, to believe, but I mean what I say, and I'm going to try to show you why. Here's the statement: there is no event.
And there are no circumstances in life. That should diminish the Christian's joy. Let me say that again. There is no event and there are no circumstances in life. that should diminish the Christian's joy.
In fact, let me go further than that. If there are circumstances Or events. that do diminish your joy. You have sinned. You have sinned.
Does that sound ridiculous given the woes of life? Does that sound like an impossible thing to believe? But the Bible commands, rejoice. How often? Always.
And in case you didn't get it, again I say. Rejoice.
Now let's look at this command here and let's see why what I just said is true. Why there is no event or circumstances That occurs in the life of a Christian that should diminish that Christian's joy. Let's look at the command first of all: rejoice. Always, and as I said, it is not isolated. Such a command is repeated certainly in Philippians and elsewhere.
I think about 1 Peter 4:13. It says, keep on rejoicing. Even to the degree that you share in the sufferings of Christ. Paul said, even though I am suffering, I am rejoicing. Peter says, to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, to that degree keep on rejoicing.
It's sort of like as your suffering escalates, so should your rejoicing. Scripture has a lot to say about this. A lot to say about it. You remember that in the discourse that our Lord had with the disciples in the upper room on the night of his betrayal. John 13.
shows Jesus sitting down at the table with the disciples and From then, flowing through chapter 17, he has this amazing dialogue in which he leaves a legacy to them. I call that section the legacy of Jesus. And one of the things that Jesus leaves his own is joy. And eight times in that section, he refers to joy or full joy. He even says Everything I'm saying to you is so that your joy may be full.
I'm leaving. I'm going to die. I'm going to be crucified. I'm not going to be here. I'm not going to be with you.
You're going to have a lot of trouble in this world. You'll have tribulation. They'll pursue you. Those who are leading the synagogue will come after you. They'll take your life.
If they've persecuted me, they'll persecute you and all of that. But I'm telling you all these things. Because I want you to have full joy. Wow. In the midst of frightening circumstances, the death of the Lord, the loss of Him who was their life.
As he was going to leave them in the midst of the anticipation of terrible suffering and persecution and even death. And all of that. He said You should have full joy. Continually this is stressed. And adversity doesn't change it.
Let's go back to Matthew chapter 5 for a moment. Doesn't matter how severe the difficulty is, it doesn't change. The requirement. Verse 10 of Matthew 5, Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when men cast insults at you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely on account of me. Rejoice and be glad. Boy, that's not always easy to do. When you've been insulted, persecuted, and all kinds of evil things. have been said against you falsely.
Rejoice.
And be glad. There's a very similar passage in Luke's Gospel. Luke 6, 22 and 23 says, Blessed are you when men hate you. And the word blessed means happy. Happy are you when men hate you and ostracize you and cast insults at you and spurn your name as evil.
Because you're associated with Christ. Listen to this. Be glad in that day and leap for joy. Leap for joy? Jump for joy?
It's like when you come home and After a day at work and You're whistling a tune and singing a song, and a smile is from ear to ear. You're skipping along and just kind of feeling in a bouncy mood, and maybe you do a little jig, and your wife says, What happened to you? Oh, I was persecuted today. I was insulted, ostracized, and all manner of evil was spoken against me. I was having a conversation not long ago with a friend and And he was telling me about how terribly he was being treated.
and about how terrible things were being said about him. Terrible insults and misrepresentations were being poured out against him, and he was sick of it. And he was tired of it. And he didn't like it. And it wasn't fair.
And I was listening and endeavoring to be sympathetic and To a degree. And I finally said, I said, can I ask you a question? I said um Apart from the fact that you don't seem too joyful, Um Have you ever thought about what it is that God is trying to accomplish in your life through all of this?
Well, um He said, well, um He's probably trying to show me I ought to Be careful who I say things to. Oh. I wouldn't think that would be the point. I'm not talking about What do you think he's trying to do to you? What do you think the Lord is trying to accomplish in you?
Do you think maybe he'd like to make you more like his son? Boy, that's a convicting thing to say to somebody who's just wallowing in their misery and feels justified. How about leaping around for joy? Does that seem like the thing you ought to be doing? Are you kidding?
But if you obey this command, rejoice how often? Always? Even when you're suffering, even when you're persecuted, alienated, ostracized, all kinds of evil is spoken against you, even when you're mistreated and. Misunderstood and misrepresented, and you are to respond by rejoicing. How can one do that?
Well, certainly the Apostle Paul, he was good at it. He had to be because his whole life was one of pain. James was uh Very instructive when he said in chapter 1, verse 2, Count it all. Joy when you fall into Various trials. You ought to be happier about your trials than you are about the good times.
Because the trials are much more refining, aren't they? They're much more spiritually productive, aren't they? They're much more likely to strip off your self- Centeredness. They're much more likely to convince you that you're not in control of everything and break your pride. They're much more likely to humble you.
They're much more likely to make you dependent. They're much more likely to enhance your prayer life. They're much more likely to give you sympathy with the pain of Christ and everybody else's pain. Oh, they have such a good work. James says, Count it all joy when you fall into various trials.
And because the trials of your faith, or the testing of your faith, produces endurance, and endurance has a perfecting work. Do you rejoice in your trials? You rejoice in your suffering. You rejoice. in your pain and your difficulty, well that is what the Bible calls you to do.
Now You say, well, wait a minute. It says in Romans 12, 15, rejoice with those who rejoice. and weep with those who weep. I mean, is that a contradiction? I mean, isn't there a time to stop rejoicing?
Well In an outward sense, I was in this conference in Chicago preaching all day and Preaching on the great authority and power of Scripture. We had a great time, but There were other speakers speaking and I was standing outside the auditorium while someone else was finishing up and One of my dear, dear friends came out. And he came up to me and he was just frustrated. You could see it everywhere. Oh he said.
Oh And he said, I just can't believe it. Yeah. I said, well, let's talk about it.
So he came over and he started to cry. And of course, that gets to me, you know, when my friend is crying, and I put my arm around him. And I for a moment understood what it was to weep with him who weeps. That didn't affect my joy. He was traumatized by something that was happened that broke his heart.
It didn't affect my joy. and it really didn't affect his either. Through my sympathy and empathy, I smiled at him and I just suggested that maybe the Lord. was still on the throne? And maybe he had a purpose?
to unfold There's something about outward identification with normal human emotion. Of course, we share that. There's something about a tender embrace for someone who's in pain and sorrow. There's something about sharing a tear. There's something about understanding sympathetically someone's sorrow and showing them compassion.
But that doesn't touch the deep, down abiding joy. It shouldn't. I think the balance is expressed in 2 Corinthians 6.10. The Apostle Paul says, As sorrowful yet always rejoicing. That's the balance he's talking about: as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.
Sure, there's a place for normal human sympathy, but always rejoicing. Under those tears and under that sympathy is this unending joy. At all times rejoice. This is so much a part of the early church, by the way. that they're greeting, and I wish we could get this started.
Their greeting was Kyrote. You know what that is? That's rejoice. That's rejoice. And you know who initiated that?
Jesus did. On the morning after his resurrection, you remember. He came out of the grave and then he met with his disciples. The first thing he said in their greeting. Was all hailed.
What a crazy translation. All hail as if Jesus was British. I suppose if Americans had translated the word, they'd have said hi. The word is karate, rejoice. That's what he said.
And that was the right thing to say, wasn't it? After the resurrection, he comes into these guys and they're all moaning. and weeping. Because he's gone and he shows up and says, rejoice. And that became the greeting.
It's sure a lot better than high. Can we get that started? Rejoice.
Good morning. Rejoice.
That's the common greeting that they used. Rejoice.
And well, they should, because there was a constant reason to do it, and it was a command, and you need to be reminded of that command a lot. In Acts 15. 23. They sent a letter. You remember the Council of Jerusalem sent a letter.
The apostles and the brethren who are elders to the brethren in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia. Who are from the Gentiles, greetings. Greetings. They really said, Rejoice. Rejoice.
Rejoice.
And certainly, we have every reason to rejoice. We're commanded to. Scripture says our joy is to be great. It is to be abundant. It is to be exceeding.
It is to be animated, unspeakable, full of glory and awe. All of that is what the scripture says. It's not like the joy the world has. The world's joy is a whole different deal. I mean, if you wanted to sort of define it Biblically, this is how the world's joy would be described biblically.
First of all, it is derived from earthly pleasures. The world's joy comes from earthly pleasures. For example, in Ecclesiastes, Chapter 2, verse 10, chapter 11, verse 9, both those places. It talks about earthly joy. And it says That people rejoice by following the impulses of their heart.
In other words, when you get a passion or a longing or a desire or a lust for something and you get it fulfilled, you have a joy. That's earthly joy, completely connected to the fulfillment of earthly desires. But Proverbs 14 says this is Delusive. Because it says the end of joy may be grief. People want, want, want, want, and they rush toward that want, driven by their impulses, they fulfill that want, and very often, not long after they have fulfilled that lust, it turns to grief.
It is short-lived. This pleasure, it's only as good as the time you're enjoying the pleasure that you can enjoy the joy. The joy doesn't last beyond the pleasure. That's why Job chapter 20, verse 5 says, The joy of the godless is momentary. It is completely connected to some pleasure.
When the pleasure ends, the joy is gone and often turns to grief. In fact, Ecclesiastes 7:6 says that worldly joy is like kindling wood, it just burns up. James said, It often is turned into mourning. Let your joy be turned to mourning. And that means it has the implication of judgment.
It's very possible that when you have fulfilled your short-lived pleasure, the pleasures of sin for a season, and when you have fulfilled it and it's turned to grief, and in the aftermath you've got the hangover of emptiness, what you have to look forward to is the judgment of God. For such indulgence. That's why Isaiah 16:10 says, the joy of the godless will be taken away. That's judgment.
So we're not talking about that kind of joy. We're not talking about some kind of pleasure fulfillment. We're not even talking about something that's sort of a A personality trait.
Some people are naturally more bubbly and buoyant than other people, and some people have a sort of a natural approach to life where they can put a positive spin on things better than others.
Some people, we call them moody people, don't we? Who just seem to sink under everything. They just tend to be that way, as if their sort of psychological makeup was some. Excuse for their failure to obey the word of God. We're not talking about some kind of natural characteristic, some kind of ability to bounce above things.
We're not talking about a sort of a positive thinking approach where you try to recreate your own fantasy world of positive things in the midst of a negative reality. We're not talking about playing mental games. It's not a natural thing we're talking about here. We're talking about something that has to transcend that because that's only good for so long. and in some rather shallow circumstances.
We're talking about a supernatural joy here. We're talking about something that belongs only to Christians, something that's deep down. It is As to its source, Identified in Galatians 5:22 as a fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy. In fact, in Romans 14, 17, it says, The kingdom of God is made up of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
We're talking about a spiritual joy that comes from the Holy Spirit, like spiritual peace and righteousness and love. We have a love that is not earthly love. We have a righteousness that is not self-righteousness. We have a peace that is not the peace the world gives. And we have a joy that is different.
It's a deep-down joy. It's not the kind of joy the world knows. It comes from God. Through Christ. is dispensed by the Holy Spirit.
And no circumstance, I say it again, no circumstance, no event. Should cause The absence of that joy. There's only one thing. One thing that legitimately Should steal your joy. What is it?
sin and it shouldn't steal it for very long because you immediately should what? confess that sin, and rejoice In God's forgiveness.
Now let me give you a definition of this joy. Just so you uh you know what it is. It isn't a natural joy. It isn't this worldly joy. It isn't something that some people have because they put a positive spin on life.
Here's what it is. It is the experience of well-being. It is the experience of well-being. that springs From the deep down confidence. That God is in perfect control of everything.
For my good and his glory.
Okay? It is the experience of well-being. And it is an experience, and an experience of well-being. It is feeling okay, good, on top, positive, triumphant, victorious, not because of the circumstance, but because of the deep-down confidence that God is in charge of everything. and that it is all moving for my good and his glory.
All of us. Can respond to everything in life with joy if we believe that God is affecting His glory and our good out of that. That's why I said to my friend, what do you think the Lord's trying to do through this? Think he's trying to make you more like Christ? Boy, you ought to be happy.
You ought to say, thank you, Lord, for this trial. Thank you, thank you. All of us should be in the habit of constantly expressing joyful wonder. When you just think about what God is doing in your life. Mm-hmm.
That's the command. Rejoice always. Let me give you the reasons to obey it, okay? Here's reasons for you to be thankful. Because joy is an act of proper response to the character of God.
Proper response to the character of God. And I'm starting right where I just left off. Joy starts. Because I know my God. is sovereign.
Gracious, loving. Merciful, kind. Kind. Omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. And he has my well-being.
in his mind. Right? That's the deep-down confidence. I know my God. And my God says, They might mean it for evil.
But I mean it for Good. My God says I work all things together for Good to those who Love me. Wow. Uh I know my God. And I can rejoice in my God.
I can't always rejoice in my circumstances. But I can rejoice in the God who controls my circumstances. I can rejoice in the character of my God. Are you not glad that your God is unchanging? What if God changed the way he operated from time to time?
Yeah. What a frightening thing that would be. What if his grace was whimsical? and only dispensed on certain occasions when he felt like it. But what if his justice came and went?
What if he had mental lapses? What a frightening thing that would be. the consistency of our God's character, The absolute Immutability, unchanging. wisdom, sovereignty, power. Grace, mercy, That causes joy.
In my heart. It causes me joy to know that what my God says, He does. What he promises, he fulfills. Secondly, You can't touch. the Christian's joy because you can't touch the Christian's God.
Because he's unchanging. And true. Secondly, Joy is a proper act of appreciation for the work of Christ. Joy is a proper Response, a proper act of appreciation. For the work of Christ.
When I realized that Jesus Christ bore My sins in his own body on the tree, that Jesus Christ. Who knew no sin became sin for me when I realized that God laid on him the iniquity of us all. When I realized that I was redeemed not with corruptible things like silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ when I realized that when. I was an enemy when I was hated, when I Uh when I hated God, when I was his enemy and When I was against him and a blasphemer and a mocker in mercy and in love, God sent his Son to redeem me. When I understand that the cross takes away all my sin, when I understand that his perfect substitutionary atonement covers me with the righteousness of Christ, when I understand that therefore heaven is eternally mine, when I understand all that Christ has accomplished, that gives me an abiding joy that any trivial passing circumstance of life should not affect.
You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. Today's John showed you that true joy comes from having confidence in a sovereign God who works everything, even the toughest trials, for your good. If you've committed your life to him, John's current study is called The Pillars of Christian Character. And friend, for more help in strengthening the spiritual foundations that John is covering in this study, let me recommend you pick up John's brand new study guide, also called The Pillars of Christian Character. The study guide includes a question and answer section in each chapter.
It's great material to go through with someone you're discipling or with your Bible study group.
So ask for the study guide titled The Pillars of Christian Character when you get in touch today. You can place your order at our website, gty.org, or call us at eight hundred fifty five GRACE. The Pillars of Christian Character Study Guide will help you set a sturdy biblical foundation for your life. and you'll turn to it again and again. To get your copy call 855 GRACE.
or visit gty dot org. And as you use the study guide, let us know how it is deepening your relationship with the Lord. We'd also love to know if you've been strengthened by John's teaching on the radio or by an article you've read on our website, and especially if the Lord has used this ministry to bring you or someone you know to faith in Christ. Email your story to letters at gty. org or drop a note in the mail to Grace to U, Box four thousand.
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Now for the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace to U television this Sunday on DirecTV Channel 378. And be here Monday as John shows you how you can know deep abiding joy no matter what trials come your way. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth. one verse at a time on grace to you.
