We live in a fallen, broken world where suffering is inevitable and the Bible is clear that Christians aren't immune to pain and sadness. So what's the secret to finding joy even in the midst of hardship? And what hinders that joy? We'll find out today on Truth for Life as Alistair Begg teaches from Galatians chapter 5 verse 22.
Let me begin in this way. In 2009, speaking at a conference on the West Coast, someone came to me after the talk—I can't remember what I was addressing—but they slipped me a note, which I have kept in my file ever since. It reads as follows, Dear Pastor Begg, A friend was suffering through brain cancer and its treatments. His relationship with Jesus was such that the nurse on duty wrote as a critical comment on his chart, Mr. X is inappropriately joyful. Since then, says the writer of the note, it has become one of my goals to be inappropriately joyful. Now, presumably, in that instance, the nurse was unable to see how joy could possibly accompany such dreadful and difficult suffering.
It is a fairly understandable reaction, isn't it? And it allows us to make the distinction which we must make between happiness and joy. Happiness—our English word happiness—is rooted in the Latin hap, which is chance. And so we tend to think of happiness—indeed, the pursuit of happiness—runs along lines which are invariably linked with health and with success and with possessions. Happiness is regarded largely as a kind of spontaneous response to temporary pleasures—the things that, if they're going well, make us feel somehow inside that all is well with the world and we're okay. By contrast, joy is not determined by a sense of well-being. Because joy may be experienced when things are ill with us—when, as some of us are this morning, facing illness or dealing with bereavement or facing the uncertainty of life without the job which has marked our lives by security to this point, when circumstances are difficult.
So that if happiness depends upon what happens, joy is distinguishable from that inasmuch as it shapes our attitude to our circumstances and to our surroundings. That's why we read from 1 Peter chapter 1, because I wanted to ground our topic in Peter's statement there in verse 8, Though you have not seen him, that is, seen Jesus, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.
Now, the progression is very important. You don't see him. It's not about perception in that way, but you believe in him, and as you believe in him, you rejoice with a joy that is inexpressible.
What the nurse on that occasion in that hospital regarded as not simply inexpressible but actually inappropriate. Now, this joy, then—and let's make sure we understand this—this joy, Christian joy, is the natural or, if you like, supernatural response of believing the gospel. Well, says somebody, does that mean that only Christians understand the distinction between happiness and joy?
Well, no, I think we would have to say, and understandably, that those who are not Christians may also know a joy which is distinct from happiness. Those of you who have read The Road to Character by David Brooks will know that he writes in there about a joy which he refers to as moral joy. He says it is the joy of people who have their values in deep harmony with their behavior. So that that sense of knowing that my integrity is marked by a believing pattern of life which is then revealed in the things I do. He goes on to say it is that quiet sense of gratitude and tranquility that comes as a byproduct—notice the phrase—of successful moral struggle.
Okay? So in other words, this is something that you have to give yourself to and make sure that you do. So I want to make a further distinction. If there's a distinction between happiness and joy, there's a distinction, then, which the Bible would point out, between what Brooks refers to as this moral joy and what we will refer to as Christian joy. And the joy of the Christian is unique, because at its heart is the joy of salvation—the joy of salvation. It's not simply the sense of well-being that we have because we feel that our behavior is in line with our profession, but it is a far deeper and more significant joy. It is the joy that is grounded in the fact that we know all that God has done for us in Jesus to set us free from our sins, from the devil, and from death. It's perfectly possible to know that kind of moral joy without having any understanding of this at all.
Our world this morning, as we've said routinely, is broken, it's desperately ill, and I would argue that in Western culture, man is at this point in history as unhappy as he probably has ever been. So where, then, is joy to be found? Well, the Christian is able to say that there is only one cure for the ill of man, that when my conscience accuses me, there is only one thing that I know that can give me rest and peace and joy.
And what is that? It is to know that Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, has forgiven me. It is to believe and to know that because he loved me and because he died for me, I am free of accusation, and that when my conscience accuses me, when I am aware of my weakness, when I'm aware of my failure, when I'm aware of my lack of power to live as God intends for me to live, I am driven again and again and again back to that solid rock—the rock of my salvation. And that is the distinguishing feature of the joy that is produced in us, what the hymn writer refers to as the solid joys and the lasting treasure that none but Zion's children know. Christian joy, as in love, are the other parts of the fruit of the Spirit.
Remember, it is singular. These are not fruits, but one fruit, one well-orbed Christlike experience. Christian joy is not manufactured by us, but it is fruit that is produced in us. Christian joy is based on an objective reality.
It is not based on subjective feelings. We go immediately wrong when we start to take our own spiritual pulse to determine where we are in relationship to these things. Christian joy is anchored in the facts of the faith.
That's why Peter is very careful in his language. He doesn't say, You feel this about your life? He says, You believe in him, and you rejoice with joy that is inexpressible. So, in other words, what we believe about these essential things impacts how we handle all the other elements of life. It makes perfect sense. So let me take us to the conclusion with three Gs and a J. Okay? Guilt, grace, gratitude, joy.
What is the first thing that I need to know? Guilt is not a politically correct subject, because it makes people feel guilty. But there is no awareness of immense grace and gratitude without an understanding of the reality of guilt. Sin, according to the Bible, is first of all a condition. It is the state of our souls. Individual sins, like envy and lust and racism and pride and arrogance and so on—all of those sins are symptoms of our condition. It is a condition that is a shared condition. Paul says in Romans 3, All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
It is not only shared, but it is also terminal. The wages of sin is death. It is also, as the Catechism points out, miserable.
Miserable. Now, whether a man or a woman feels that to be the case or not, it is an objective condition. The Bible says, true of us all by nature. Part of the misery of being lost is not knowing that we're lost. So when someone sits and listens, for example, to this first point under G, guilt, the temptation is to simply say, This must be true for somebody else, but it surely isn't true of me. And then, if the lights go on, we find ourselves singing along with the rest of the congregation, I once was lost in darkest night, yet thought I knew the way.
I was once absolutely lost. My condition before God was a miserable condition, but I had managed to anesthetize myself against it. I had managed through temporary pleasures and evidences of my own success and progress to make sure that I didn't have to tackle it. You see, the answer to our sin and our misery is not trying harder to be what we can't. The answer to guilt—and this is our second word—is grace.
Grace. God's riches at Christ's expense. What we've been seeing in Ephesians chapter 2—Paul begins Ephesians 2 reminding them, And you were at that time, he says, at one time dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you once walked, following the course of this world. And you follow his argument down, and he says in verse 4, But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. So here's the wonder of it, that by God's grace, those who are dead and in need of resurrection find it in Jesus. By nature, I am enslaved and in need of liberation, and Jesus sets us free. By nature, I am condemned and I am in need of mercy.
And God, who is rich in mercy. You see, without an awareness of our sin and misery, a number of things inevitably follow. For example, let's think about it now in terms of public proclamation from a pulpit like this. If the pastor is embarrassed by the notion of sin and guilt and misery, if the pastor is so concerned to make sure that he doesn't offend against the perceptions and consciences of his congregation—especially if he's preaching to a congregation—that when they have posed for themselves the question, How can I deal and find joy in the face of life and death? And the answer has come, Well, I think if there is a God, as you say, and he's a good God, then I believe that he will reward nice people if they simply do their best.
And since I am a relatively nice person and I've been doing my best for some time, this is my confidence, and this is my trust. Now, the pastor, then, if he's going to be bold enough to say, No, we can't go there, because the Bible doesn't allow us to, then the person in the congregation says, Well, this must apply to the person next to me. And when that happens, then once guilt and sin and misery are removed, then there is no longer any need for a Savior. All you need now in Jesus is a supplement. Is that your understanding of Christianity, that Jesus has come to supplement your already good life?
Well, then, you must bring that before the scrutiny of the Bible and see whether it actually fits the page. And when you realize that it is the reality of my sin and my misery and my guilt that gives way to the wonder of grace, then we're on track. You see, unless we go there, then the proclamation from the pulpit is just along the lines of self-improvement. The Sunday by Sunday sermons are advice for well-meaning people, encouragements, ways to suggest that you can hang on some good stuff onto the Christmas tree of your life.
But it is an empty notion, and it is unsustainable. No, the Christmas story is far greater. God demonstrates his love for us in this, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And the Christian realizes, I don't know Jesus as a supplement.
I need Jesus as my Savior. No, the only answer to guilt is grace, and the only right response to grace is gratitude. Gratitude.
Karl Barth put it as follows. Grace and gratitude belong together like heaven and earth. Grace evokes gratitude like the voice of an echo. Gratitude follows grace like thunder lightning. And as gratitude follows grace, so joy follows gratitude. Well, what is the impact from the thunder of gratitude when a heart is filled with gratitude? It is a deep-seated Christian joy. It is not an inane grin.
It is not a silly story about how I have been removed from the realm of reality and the rigors of life and the fears and failures and disappointments of experience. It is something that is far more substantial than that. It is an objective reality, in the same sense that our sinful condition is an objective reality. And it is on the strength of that objective, historical work of Christ upon the cross that one condition may be replaced by the other. That's why the Bible is full of joy. That's why we began this morning with Psalm 95. Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord. Why, the psalmist says at the end of Psalm 16, in your presence there is fullness of joy, and at your right hand there are pleasures forevermore. How many joyful people do you know?
And here's the harder question. I was asking myself that during the week. I said to myself, How many really joyful people do I know?
And then I said, And I wonder, Am I one of them? Because there definitely are hindrances to true joy, aren't there? We need to stop, but let me just give you three words. Number one is foolishness. Foolishness is a hindrance to true joy. The foolishness that Paul addresses in Romans chapter 1, where he says that God has revealed himself both in conscience and in creation, but man in his foolishness has turned his back on God, and his heart has become darkened, and he embraces all kinds of things that actually unravel all that God intends for him to be. True, deep-seated joy hindered by forgetfulness.
Forgetfulness. Psalm 103. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. You've forgotten, he says. All the way—I was reading Jeremiah this morning, and the prophet is speaking to the people—he says, Have you folks forgotten what God did? Have you forgotten that he brought you out of Egypt? Have you forgotten that he has the only answer to the deepest longings of your heart? Have you forgotten that he has given you his commands and so on? And one of the great depletions of joy in the life of a genuine believer is that we have forgotten. Or by faintheartedness—grief, disappointment, harping back to forgiven but not forgotten sins.
You see how it works both ways? We deplete our joy by forgetting what we should remember and by remembering what we should forget. The Evil One is the accuser of us, isn't he? He wants to come and take you back through the garbage cans of sins long in your past and rob you of your joy. And if your answer to that is not to look out from yourself to Christ but to begin to look into yourself, then he will be successful, and you will lose.
Because the only thing that he answers to and submits to and flees from is the truth that is found in Jesus. I was reading Spurgeon during the week, and he says something along the lines of, I have learned to be joyful in the aftermath of my illness, but I must confess I was not joyful in the experience of my illness. Then he says, What am I then to say?
He says, I am to say that I am a growing Christian, that I am learning as I go. Spurgeon, if you read him, had dark days. Dark days. Cowper had the darkest of days.
Cowper's final seven years of his life, they were one slow slide into abject depression. When Newton preached at Cowper's funeral, he acknowledged the same. Cowper, out of the depths of that road, God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform.
He plants his footsteps in the sea, and he rides upon the storm. See, what we need to remember is what we said last time in relationship to love. And that is that we're not saved by joy. We're saved by faith. We're not saved by joy. Because if you ask yourself, Have you been as joyful as you should have been this week? You go, No.
Did you love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength this week? Mm-mm. So on. So where do we look? Well, we look here.
We look to the objective reality of who Jesus is, what Jesus has done, and what it means to be in Jesus. Ebenezer Erskine was a Scottish minister. He died in 1754. Spurgeon was a fan of Erskine. Spurgeon records how when Erskine was dying, somebody said to him, Ebeneezer, I hope you have now and then a glimpse of heaven to bear up your spirit under affliction.
All right? So he's on his deathbed. He says, Pastor Erskine, I hope every now and then you have a glimpse of heaven to bear up your spirit under affliction.
To which Ebeneezer promptly replied, I know more of words than of glimpses. And Spurgeon went on to say, You see, the joy of the Lord is what does the most damage to Satan's empire of anything. Satan can't handle truly joyful believers. Satan can't handle it when he tempts us to despair and tells us of the guilt within, and upward we look and see him there who made an end to all our sin.
He can't handle it. It says, Spurgeon, I am with Luther, who used to say, when he heard any very bad news, Come, let us sing a psalm and spite the devil. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. In this study, we are learning that the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and so on is a gift. It's not something we produce. It's produced in us by the grace of God. And the book we want to recommend to you today takes a close-up look at these defining characteristics of a believer as seen in their perfected state in the life of Christ. The book is titled The Character of Christ, The Fruit of the Spirit in the Life of Our Savior. As you read this book and as you focus on how Christ displayed love, for example, you'll learn that his love is sacrificial. It's poured out on those who don't deserve it. And it's a love that is first and foremost a benefit to the recipient.
That's just an example of what you'll see when you dive in and read The Character of Christ. Ask for your copy of this book when you donate to Truth for Life today through the mobile app or online at truthforlife.org slash donate. Or you can call us at 888-588-7884. And if you'd rather mail your donation along with your request for the book, write to Truth for Life at Post Office Box 398000, Cleveland, Ohio 44139.
Thanks for joining us today. The Bible promises believers peace, but life often feels anything but peaceful. How can we experience God's promised peace? That's our focus tomorrow. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
