Fruit of the Spirit – Joy(Psalm 100)

“Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4)

How can you tell someone is a Christian? Jesus says, “by their fruit you will recognise them” (Matthew 7:16) and a key characteristic of the fruit of the Spirit is joy. So shouldn’t joy be a key sign that someone might be a Christian? At last Saturday’s confirmation service, there was a palpable sense of joy, especially among the candidates as they publicly declared their faith in Jesus. Joy often is a mark of Christians.

How do we cultivate this joy? By focussing on our reason for joy. By gathering together to praise God and celebrate what he has done for us in Jesus.

Fruit of the Spirit, Joy (Psalm 100)

“A joyful church is a growing church!” (Bishop Philip North)

• Confirmation Service

Last Saturday, we had a wonderfully joyful service as we celebrated 29 candidates from across Thanet making public declarations about their faith, and over 190 people in St. Luke’s for the occasion. The bishop led it in a rightfully joyful way, but the true joy was to see the evidence of God at work in individual lives and indeed to see the joy on the candidates faces. This is what we long to see more of in our church life.

• Fruit of the Spirit

Last week, we saw, that as Christians filled with God’s Spirit, we are called to walk in step with the Spirit and so to see the growth of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, a character that reflects the character of God.

Over the coming months, we are going to look in turn at the nine characteristics of the fruit of the Spirit. The second one in the list is joy. In other words, if the Spirit is truly at work in our lives, then we should expect to see people full of joy in our churches. Indeed, for our churches to be joyful churches.

• Bishop Philip North

Last summer, Andrew McMillan, Mark Ogden and I went to a conference in London about planting and growing churches. you might expect it to have been a very evangelical affair, but one of the keynote speakers was Bishop Philip North, a well-known Anglo-Catholic. His talk was all about the importance of joy in our churches. He saw joy as key to effective mission and growth. He even claimed, “A joyful church is a growing church!”

Surely, this is right isn’t it? There is something attractive and compelling about true joy, that draws people in. Just like sunshine after weeks of rain, a joyful community in the midst of miserable world, lifts your spirits and makes you want more.

How do we find joy?

So how do we find joy as Christians and as a church?

Moments of joy:

There are of course moments of joy that all people whether Christian or not share in.

Weddings

When I was on holiday, someone asked me, as a vicar what was the most enjoyable part of my job. I said, leading groups with people exploring the Christian faith. She said, that she wanted me to say, taking weddings! Certainly, taking weddings are a joyful part of my role, because it is a privilege to be enable such a joyful occasion. And many will say that their wedding day was the happiest day of their lives. It even says so in the Bible of Solomon:

“… the day of his wedding, the day his heart rejoiced.” (Song of Songs 3:11b)

Childbirth

Another candidate for the happiest day in people’s lives is the birth of their child or children. Bringing a new life into the world, is certainly an amazing moment. Describing the occasion, Jesus says:

“A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.” (John 16:21)

Success

Perhaps a third moment of joy, is when we experience some kind of success. I was pretty happy last Monday night, when the chess team that I captain managed to win their match 4-0!  A great success.

But of course, there are bigger more important moments of success. For much of history, harvest time is a time of joy, because the success of your crops, was not just a reward for the hard work you had put in, but food security for the coming year. Similarly, success in war, especially when an oppressor is defeated is a reason for great rejoicing. The celebrations at the end of World War II were remembered by many as a moment of great joy.

These ideas are encapsulated in a famous verse from Isaiah:

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as men rejoice when dividing the plunder.” (Isaiah 9:3)

All of these things bring great moments of joy that are common to all human experience and life. But life is more than these moments. It includes moments of great sadness and struggle.

The writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us that there is:

“a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,” (Ecclesiastes 3:4)

Permanent Joy:

Yet Paul commands in Philippians:

 “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4)

 For Christians, there will be times when we are rightly sad and mourning. The outbreak of war in the Middle East is a reason to be sad and mourn. For many of you, there will be personal circumstances and reasons, that give you reason to weep and mourn.

 How then can Paul tell us, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always!’?

I don’t think Paul is saying we should always smile and pretend to be happy no matter what is happening in our lives. Such joy is just a mask. It’s not the real thing. No, Paul is calling on us to hold on at a deep level to the joy that we have in and because of Christ. A joy that no matter how bad the circumstances of life become can never be taken away. It is a joy that comes through the deep connection with God that Jesus brings. This is not a joy rooted in the circumstances of life, but the permanent truths about Jesus and the eternal salvation he brings.

A key passage on joy comes from Jesus’ teaching to his disciples in John’s gospel. He is teaching in a moment of gloom, because he has told his disciples that he is leaving them. The next day he will be crucified.

Nonetheless, Jesus talks to them about how they can find joy:

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” (John 15:9-12)

Notice, how Jesus roots joy in love. Knowing that we are loved by God and obeying his commands and especially his command to love others. When we are fully embedded in this network of love, then not only is our joy complete, but Jesus finds joy in us!

If this is the case, then the barriers to joy are obvious. We lose our joy when we become disconnected from God and others. When love fails, joy fails.

Barriers to Joy:

In some ways it is odd to be talking about joy in Lent. After all isn’t Lent a time or mournful self-reflection. Yes, it is, but the point of the mournful self-reflection is to reach a deeper joy with God.

In talking to his disciples about his coming death and resurrection he says to them:

“I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.” (John 16:20)

Without Good Friday, there would be no Easter Sunday. The cross deals with our sin, the resurrection guarantees our hope as forgiven people. In the same way, Lent is a time to deal more seriously with our sin in order to embrace more fully the joy of the resurrection life we have in Jesus.

 And sin is our greatest barrier to joy, because sin disconnects us from God and others. If our joy in Christ has been blocked, then we need with God’s help to deal with the blockage, so that joy may flow again.

Disconnected from God – Psalm 51

David knew this very clearly. Psalm 51 was his great confession, that he wrote following his sin of committing adultery with another man’s wife and then having him killed to cover it up. It is one of the key Psalms that has been focussed on in Lent.

In the Psalm, David begs for God’s forgiveness. In doing so he longs for what he has lost because of his sin – his joy in God.

“Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.” (Psalm 51:8)

“Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” (Psalm 51:12)

 If you have lost the joy of your salvation, then maybe it is because you need to confess your sin once more to God. Why not use Psalm 51 as a model prayer to help you!

Disconnected from Others – Psalm 133

A second reason for loss of joy is to become disconnected from others. In Psalm 133, the joy of unity and good relationships is celebrated:

“How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1)

 If we have lost our joy, it may be because we have fallen out with others and particularly other fellow Christians. If so, we need to do something about it.

After all, Jesus says:

“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23-24)

Lack of Corporate Thanksgiving – Psalm 100

The third blockage may be more to do with laziness, than with broken relationships. Have we stopped making meeting with others to praise and worship God a priority in our life? In other words are we failing to attend church as regularly as we could?

Psalm 100, is known as the Jubilate, because the first word in the Latin version, is translated, “Shout for joy!” It is also the only Psalm to have the title, “a Psalm for thanksgiving.”

But it, is not so much a Psalm for thanksgiving, as a Psalm that calls on us to come together to give thanks to God.

It includes 7 commands:

• Shout for joy
• Worship
• Come before God
• Know God
• Enter the place of worship
• Give thanks
• Praise or bless his name.

The first three and last three are in effect all a call to join with others in praise to God. Whilst the middle one is an invitation to know why we should praise and give thanks to God, because he made us and he is our good shepherd. The last verse also underlines how God is good, loving and faithful.

There is every reason to thank God, so let’s come together and do so together! Let’s be a joyful church, not because the momentary circumstances of life are good, but because our God is always good and his love for us endures forever!

 When we do, then we are being truly radical in today’s secular, individualised and moaning society. We will be a truly joyful church and I believe we will see more people want to join us in God’s network of love, and perhaps we will have many more moments of celebration like last Saturday.

Be ready for a joyful church (depending on time)

But, if we want that, then we need to be proactive. One way to do that is to prepare for coming to church, rather than just turning up.

With my children going to university in recent years, I have learnt about the idea of pre-drinks. Students often have cheap shop drinks at home, before going out to clubs in order to help them be tipsy enough to have fun when they arrive at the club. Shouldn’t we, as Christians consider a similar idea for church. I don’t mean having a quick tipple of Sherry on a Sunday morning before church but preparing ourselves that we might enjoy ourselves (and encourage others) when we come to church.

How can we do that? Well, think about the barriers we mentioned.

• Get right with God
  • Spend some time in prayer with God, reflecting if there is any sin that you need to repent of
• Get right with others
  • Spend some time thinking about whether there are any people you have fallen out with and how you might offer reconciliation to them, as best as you are able.
• Give thanks for God’s goodness
  • Remind yourself, what God has done for you in Jesus.

 Perhaps if we did this kind of preparation more fully, then our services would be truly joyful occasions, the highlights of our week and a draw for all who come and visit us.