Bible Text:

The great evangelist Dwight L. Moody once said: 

Happiness is caused by things that happen around me. Circumstances will mar it; but joy flows right through trouble; joy flows on through the dark; joy flows in the night s well as in the day; joy flows all through persecution and opposition. It is an unceasing fountain, bubbling up in the heart. 

So, Christian joy is the “unceasing fountain bubbling up in the heart.” What about someone who lost both their business and their home in the recent flood here in Pittsburgh? Are they filled with joy? Or what about someone who lives with chronic pain? Is that person supposed to have joy as well? Or what about someone who has looked long and hard for employment in order to support their family, without success? Do they have the unceasing fountain of joy bubbling up in the heart? Or what about that person who has a great job, makes decent money, but who hates his or her work? What about the person who is desperate to get away from that work, and can’t even afford to think about leaving? Where is his or her joy? 

Joy can seem to be so elusive. Someone once made the observation, “We are born naked, wet, and hungry. And then things get worse. 

Jesus said, “I have said these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.” (John 15:11) 

Or what about this text from the Old Testament book of Jeremiah: “They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord… their life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again. Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy, I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.” (31:12-13) 

The Bible is full of honest stories of difficulty and struggle. But the Bible also resonates with shouts of gladness and joy. Yet somehow that joy seems to be so elusive. 

A preacher was doing a children’s sermon one Sunday in church. He gave each child a little acorn and said that the acorn contained a miracle. If they planted it in the ground, it could grow into a giant oak tree. In the greeting line after church, one little boy came up to the preacher and plaintively said, “Preacher, I lost my miracle.” 

Sometimes we plaintively say, “God, somewhere I lost my joy!” 

Does God really intend life to be a joy? Is life supposed to be a joyful noise? Let me share some of the things that I believe. 

JOY IS GOD’S INTENT FOR US 

First, we need to recognize that joy is God’s intent for us. Joy is in the very nature and creative purpose of God. There is an old catechism that says, “The chief end of life is to glorify God and to enjoy God forever." 

William Sloane Coffin once wrote: God does not want us narrow-minded. God doesn’t want us priggish. God doesn’t want us subservient, but joyful.”[i] 

United Methodist Bishop Kenneth Carder once said this: “Perhaps crisis talk may be the real crisis confronting the United Methodist Church. It seems to be diverting us away from the bold and hope-filled proclamation of God’s reign of justice, compassion, generosity, and joy. While we engage in crisis talk within the church, the world keeps filling with hurting, broken, starving, abused, hated, depressed, and dying people who need to hear and see a church that really believes the Gospel.” 

God’s intent for you and for me is to be joyful. 

GO DEEPER 

Then we must go deeper into our own souls. Joy is not found on the surface, but deep inside. 

A few months ago I read about a society in America I did not know existed. It’s called “The Secret Society of Happy People.”[ii] It apparently has about 6000 members. The society was founded in 1998 and established a “Admit You’re Happy” month. It was the month of August. That month is actually recognized in 19 states. People who belong to the society wear buttons that read something like this, “Don’t even think about raining on my parade.” 

But the war in Iraq, the economy, and 9/11 have changed a lot of things. The “Society” has dumped the “Admit You’re Happy” month. Instead, they now call it “National Happiness Happens” month. It is an attempt to recognize that happiness still happens. 

This is not all bad, but it’s pretty shallow. We need to go deeper. I have a colleague who preached a sermon a while back called “Deep Dish Joy.” 

I have a friend who suffers from a number of physical infirmities, as he grows older. He has said publicly and privately something I shall never forget: “I am determined that nothing will ever take away my joy.” The joy of which Jesus speaks is a deep down, deep-dish joy! It is a deep down joy that transcends any difficulty. 

A pastor with youth in a large United Methodist church in New Jersey writes this:  

The church is called to be with the oppressed, the poor, the aching, the hungry. And youth are all of those things—psychologically, socially, and cognitively. They’re searching, they’re hungry. They are “the least of these” in a lot of ways. The church is called to be there with them. That’s why I am in youth ministry. I think that Jesus is a very real answer to the problems facing youth, and so that’s why the church is in the business of ministering to youth in its own right rather than just taking money and giving it to the boys’ and girls’ club or some other secular organization working with youth. It’s not that if youth accept Jesus into their life then, Bam! Life is great. Accepting Jesus into their life does mean that Jesus is walking alongside them in their pain, frustration, and loneliness.[iii] 

There is a joy in going deeper into your own soul. 

TRY THE DISCIPLINES 

Next, we need to try the disciplines of joyful living. Paul was an amazing man in many ways. Whatever else you may think of Paul, he was a joyful person. Philippians is probably his most joyful piece of writing. Paul knew that joy is infectious. 

In the introduction to Ephesians by Eugene Petersen, we read these words.

This is Paul’s happiest letter [albeit written from a prison cell]. And the happiness is infectious. Before we’ve read a dozen lines, we begin to feel the joy ourselves—the dance of words and the exclamations of delight have a way of getting inside us. 

Paul knew the disciplines. He shared them from the “inside.” 

Bill Coffin writes again:

Strangely enough, it is because we are so passionless that we are so joyless, for passion leads to the springs of gladness…Like Jesus we can be full of joy, strongly invulnerable in the difficulties of life.[iv]

Reading the writings of those who seem to have the discipline can many times be helpful. Describing a period in his career when health was fragile and spirits were low, the famous filmmaker Ingmar Bergman wrote in his autobiography, “I was about to lose my joy. I could feel it physically. It was running out. It was just drying up inside.” 

Then Bergman recalled how Johann Sebastian Bach learned that his wife and two children had died while he was away on a trip. In his diary Bach had written, “Dear Lord, may my joy not leave me.”  

Bergman commented, “All through my conscious life I have lived with what Bach called his joy. It carried me through crisis and misery, and functioned faithfully in my heart, sometimes overwhelming and difficult to handle, but never antagonistic or destructive.” Bergman called this state his joy, a joy in God.[v] 

Let me share one more quotation that I found in a book by Dr. Harold Koenig on the medical staff at Duke University.

I am convinced that complete, total commitment to serve Jesus Christ and nothing less will result in greater joy, peace, happiness, purpose and power in life. Until my own 33^rd year of life, I was never really at peace, never really experienced sustained joy and satisfaction, never was confident of my direction in life. I restlessly chased after joy and happiness in relationships with women or in advances in my career. There was no real consistent direction or meaning to my life. That all changed when I decided to turn my life over to Jesus, and began to actively cultivate a relationship with God. Through prayer, study of a contemporary, understandable version of the Bible, participation in religious worship and fellowship, and in carrying out my calling as a physician to minister to the sick and hurting, the process of emotional healing began.[vi] 

I remember that 6 or 7 years ago I had a short-term bout with some skin cancer. Neither my doctor nor I knew what might lie ahead. In the midst of that I began an early morning ritual of walking. Each morning I prayed the same prayer as I began to walk, “God, thank you for this new day and for life in it.” I still try to do that each day, long after the news about my skin cancer was good. For me it’s part of the discipline of joyful living. 

Jimmy Dean, country music star turned pork sausage king, co-wrote a song about celebrating life’s little blessings. The title of the song is, “Drinking from my Saucer.” Here is the key verse.

So Lord, help me not to gripe

‘Bout the tough rows that I’ve hoed.

I’m drinking from my saucer ‘cause

My cup has overflowed. 

Remember the story of the woman who had a pet parakeet named Chippie?  One day she was using the vacuum cleaner hose to clean out the bottom of Chippie’s cage. The telephone rang. As she reached over to pick up the telephone to answer it, she inadvertently tilted the vacuum hose upward and suddenly sucked Chippie up into the vacuum cleaner. 

Terrified by what she had done, she quickly hung up the phone, turned off the vacuum cleaner, tore open the bag and found Chippie inside. He was still alive, but he was a filthy mess and badly shaken. Not knowing quite what to do, she took him to the kitchen sink and tried to wash the dirt off him. That just made things worse. Finally she put him back in his cage and hoped for the best. 

About a week later, the friend who had called the day of the accident called again. She said, “How’s Chippie?” Responded the other, “Well, I’m not sure I know. Chippie doesn’t sing much anymore. He just sort of sits and stares.” 

When life shakes you up, don’t just sit and stare. Keep singing, and engage in the disciplines of joyful, faith-based living! 

IT ALL COMES FROM JESUS 

Finally, remember that all of this comes from Jesus. A noted psychologist once wrote, “People who control the inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.” 

I disagree. We cannot control the quality of our lives for the most part. Least of all can we produce or manufacture joy and happiness. Remember Jesus said, “My joy is in you, so that your joy is complete.” 

Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, “I commend cheerfulness to all who would win souls. There is a great abiding joy in the presence of Jesus. No matter what happens, we must not let that joy elude us or slip away.” 

Sometimes when I lead the children of our Child Care Center in the Kingdom Kids time here in the sanctuary, we sing a song together. I teach them two versions of the song. The first version goes like this, “I have joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart, down in my heart. I have joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart, down in my heart to stay.” 

After we’ve sung that song I teach them a little different version. It’s essentially the same song, but with an important difference. It goes like this, “I’ve got the joy of Jesus, joy of Jesus down in my heart. Where? Down in my heart, down in my heart. I've got the joy of Jesus, joy of Jesus down in my heart, down in my heart to stay.” 

That may seem a bit simplistic. But it illustrates an important difference. Jesus is the source, the model, and the root of all joy. Jesus said, “I have come that my joy might be in you, and that your joy might be complete. 

Think about it. Receive that joy as a gift today. Then live it to the glory of God! 

Amen.