“I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy." Psalm 43:5 ESV
What gives you your greatest joy? A vacation on a tropical island? A problem free life? Playing with your kids? Achieving some goal that you set? A promotion at work? Purchasing a new car, or a IPhone? Being highly regarded by others? Helping someone in need? A win by your favorite team? Being physically healthy? The reason I ask this question is not just because I think every person that reads this cares about them, but also because this questions is one of the rock bottom concerns of the Bible. The Psalmist spoke of his highest joy when he says, “I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy,”
Can you say that?
The Psalmist in the midst of trouble and sorrow was God centered when he says, “I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, (ESV); to God, my joy and my delight (NIV); or very literally from the Hebrew, “God, the gladness of my rejoicing."
Here King David is threatened by enemies and feeling danger from his adversaries, and yet he knows that the ultimate battle of his life is not the defeat of his enemies, it is not escaping natural catastrophe; it is not surviving the trials and difficulties of life. The ultimate battle is: Will God be his exceeding joy? Will God be the gladness at the heart of all his joys?
God cannot be the center of your life, heart, and mind if He is not the center of your joy. This means that a primary purpose of your life is the cultivation of that joy. I write this to declare war on any kind of Christianity that is not God centered and joy producing. I am tenaciously fighting against a culture of religion and church that tells you to embrace God for all the wrong reasons and as a result produces the wrong joy by promising God is going to bring you happiness in anything less than Him. I am fighting against a shallow, mile wide, inch deep kind of Christianity that succeeds and appeals in times of safety, ease health, wealth, comfort, and security but is empty and worthless in times of trials, difficulty, and adversity.
The Old Testament says that “In God’s presence there is fullness of joy, and at his right hand are pleasures evermore.” (Psalm 16:11). “Happy are the people whose God is the Lord.”(Psalm 144:15). We are commanded to "delight ourselves in the Lord" (Psalm 37:4) and "to serve the Lord with gladness" (Psalm 100:2). Jesus commands us, "Rejoice and leap for joy for your reward is great in heaven" (Luke 6:23), and he tells us, "These things I have spoken to you that my joy might be in you and your joy might be full" (John 15:11). The apostle Paul commands us, "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice" (Philippians 4:4). He tells us that the fruit of the Spirit is joy (Galatians 5:22).
Christian joy is not the mere product of the human spirit in response to pleasant circumstances. It is the by product, or fruit, of God's Spirit, and it is not just a human joy; it is the very joy of Christ fulfilled in us.
All of these descriptions of joy and all of these demands that we rejoice are astonishing for so many reasons that it would take years to unfold all of their surprising implications. In other words, the demand to be happy in God is neither marginal nor superfluous. It is a shocking wake up call for people who are finding happiness in all the wrong places.
God commands us to be joyful because our joy honors Him and who He is in our lives. In 1 Corinthians 10:31, we are called to do everything for the glory of God. That is make much of God in everything that you do. The way to make much of God is by getting happy in Him. You cannot honor God as He so richly deserves to be honored unless He is the joy of your joy. Jonathan Edwards, who understood this as well as any Christian that I’ve ever read wrote: "The happiness of the creature consists in rejoicing in God, by which also God is magnified and exalted… God is glorified not only by His glory's being seen, but by its being rejoiced in.”
Every day there is a battle for joy -that is, the battle to obey in the great command of Psalm 37:4, "delight in the Lord". The battle is to delight in God above all other things.The battle is to be happy and satisfied in God above all competing sources of happiness and satisfaction in the universe. It is a battle of cosmic proportions according to Ephesians 6:10-19. The primary scheme of the devil is to deceive humans into embracing other things as more satisfying and happiness bringing than all that God is for them in Jesus. It is the main battle in the universe and makes all other human warfare look small and insignificant by comparison.
What does joy look like? What does it mean to delight in God? The scriptures paint a clear picture for us in order to see joy in action? I will describe one aspect this week and continue next week.
First, Joy is a key component of conversion One of my favorite sayings of Jesus about joy we find in His wonderful parable in Matthew 13:44, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”
This is one of the great descriptions of true conversion. The arrival of Jesus in a life is like discovering a billion dollars in a bag in a field and you know if you buy the field, you get the bag. You think, “I have somehow, someway got to get this field before anybody else gets it. So the man covers it over and then from joy or for joy (literally in the Greek) sold everything he had. Do you see what happens? He sells everything he had, everything. What emotions would you feel as you sold all your goods? Weeping, sorrow, regret, anxiety, fear, or depression? What emotions did this man feel as he sold all his goods? JOY! It is as if he was in a happy mindset and thought "I must sell everything". Nothing compared to the value of the field. All that this man once held dear, all he once thought important, all that he once valued, all that he once had worked so hard to attain – all this he now considers rubbish compared to the tremendous worth of the treasure in the field. So he pursued his greatest joy by selling all his possessions and buying the field. When someone becomes a Christian, he values Jesus Christ more than everything else. Jesus Christ is the great treasure, and the joy of knowing Him far outweighs the cost of any sacrifice, of any loss.
Dear reader, to be truly saved is to have your eyes open to the value of Jesus. Paul says it clearly in 2 Corinthians 4:4, “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them (it means from getting saved) from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
People without Jesus do not find their supreme joy in Him. This is because they are blind to Him and dead to Him and His surpassing worth. Verse 6 describes what happens when people see the worth of Jesus.
God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give (says the same thing he said in verse 4 just changes the vocabulary) to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
What does it mean to be saved? People get saved when the light goes on in their heart and life comes to their soul and Jesus becomes pure pleasure and joy to them. When they one looked at the cross as foolishness or a stumbling block, now everything changes.It means eyes go open and the foolishness of the cross becomes wisdom and power. You were looking at Jesus and He was boring. Why would I want to go worship Him? I have the surf, television, golf, fishing, booze, money, girls, and all the foolish, vain, and empty things we once called living. Then suddenly, late at night, light floods the heart and the cross is majestic. It was the sweetest thing I ever heard when I was a young man at the age of 21.
So are you saved? Has Jesus become the light which is the joy of all your joys? Augustine describes his own conversion this way,How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose! . . . You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure." Augustine 386 A.D. The main battle of your life is joy in God. It is not having a good marriage, being successful, your kids, and your physical health. The main battle is keeping God as your treasure and the source of your greatest joy. Brothers and sisters, pursuing joy in God is not something one may do halfheartedly if he realizes whom he is pursuing and what is at stake.
To be continued next week...
Pastor Bill
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