Category: Virtue of Joy

Joy To The World

On By BrianIn Book of Luke, Virtue of Joy1 Comment

When Mary visited Elizabeth in Luke 1, there was an explosion of joy.  John leaps in the womb for joy.  Elizabeth breaks forth in joyous praise.  And then Mary breaks forth in joyous song.  What is this joy that they found?

First, it was a Christ-centered joy.  They found this joy in Jesus.  John leaps for joy when he hears Mary’s voice because she is carrying Jesus.  Elizabeth calls Mary blessed because of the blessing in her womb – Jesus.  Mary praises God for what he has done for her – which is Jesus.  Their joy is Christ-centered.  Where do we seek our joy?

Second, it was a humble joy.  Elizabeth asks, “why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”  She knows she doesn’t deserve this blessing, and so in her humility she finds joy in the blessing.  Mary too is humble.  She calls God her Savior – a recognition of her need of one.  She is merely a humble servant – God is the one who does great things.  As the song continues, it is the humble that God lifts up.  The proud can’t know joy because they think every blessing is deserved.  Our entitlement mentality in America keeps us from knowing joy.  But the humble, who understand that they don’t deserve any good from the Lord, can find joy in every blessing that comes from the hand of the Lord.  Every blessing is a new opportunity to rejoice in God’s grace.  It is a humble joy.

Third, it was a Spirit-led joy.  Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit who reveals to her why her baby leaped.  Galatians 5 reminds us that joy is a fruit of the Spirit.  Joy comes as we walk with the Spirit.

Finally, it was a Word-saturated joy.  Mary’s song is filled with allusions, phrases, theme, words, and forms from the Old Testament.  As we saturate ourselves in the Word, we will find Jesus.  As we saturate ourselves in the Word, we can grow in humility.  As we saturate ourselves in the Word, the Spirit can use it in our lives to bring joy.  Are we saturating ourselves in the Word?

Do we want to know joy today?  It is found in Christ and in humility, through the Spirit and the Word.  Father, help us to grow in this joy!

Pursuing Joy

On By BrianIn Virtue of Joy3 Comments

One of my resolutions for the year is to grow in the Christian virtue of joy.  To that end, I recently read John Piper’s book When I Don’t Desire God: How To Fight For Joy.  It doesn’t take too long before you come to this statement:

Pursuing joy in God was a non-negotiable way of honoring God.

Seeking and finding joy in God honors him, it acknowledges God as the glorious being that he is.  The alternative is sobering: failing to seek and find joy in God dishonors God – it treats him as unglorious, ho-hum, run-of-the-mill.  Pursuing joy in other things before God dishonors him because it treats those things as more glorious than God.  As Piper writes later:

Preferring anything above Christ is the very essence of sin.

Preferring something before Christ is to give it a status above God; indeed to make it our god.  It then is a violation of the First Commandment – “You shall have no other gods before me.”  Which is to say that it is idolatry.  So joy is a serious affair – the failure to rejoice in the Lord dishonors him, is the essence of sin, and is nothing short of idolatry.  So here is the question: how do you pursue joy?  Piper seeks to answer that question in his book, but I’d love to get some other perspectives.