In Ps. 51:12 we have a plaintive cry for joy in the life. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation… Where did this cry spring from? From the man who is described in Scripture as the man after God’s own heart: King David of Israel. What a life that was. If such things were possible and people could choose to have someone else’ life to live, many would be glad to swap places with David’s son, Solomon who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and was able to stand on the shoulders of the accomplishments of his father. He reigned forty years as king with no wars and accumulated great wealth. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines, and a house that took 13 years to build (as compared to 7 years for the temple). The world is into toys and it is presumed that the one with the most toys wins. But they are only toys. Some of these things were Solomon’s undoing. But quite apart from all that, what a limited experience of life he had compared with his father. He never lived as his father did. He never experienced life or enjoyed life as David did. Yet this David is the man that cries out. It wasn’t some recluse bemoaning his choice in life that had left him isolated and bitter. It wasn’t the cry of a worldly man who had burnt himself out in sinful pursuits. No, if any man knew life and enjoyed it, it was David. David was blessed with so much – an adventuresome life – a great singing voice and song-writing ability (known as the ‘sweet psalmist of Israel’). He had an incredible victories in youth over a lion, a bear, and a giant warrior by the name of Goliath which resulted in hero-status. He had top-of-the-hit-parade songs, became a famous soldier, spent time as a fugitive living off the land, a rags to riches rise to the throne, prosperity, devoted followers, and armies and generals who won victories for him and enlarged his dominion.
Now of late he has another mans’ wife whom he had set his heart upon, and a son born to their union. But what he had recently done had made the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, but he probably never heard it. Maybe it seemed that God had overlooked his sin. What did he lack in the midst of his prosperity? In the midst of all this what he lacked were two things: one that the ungodly regard as but a mere trifle, and another the worldly think an illusion. These two things were a good conscience and a sense of divine favour.
Nathan the prophet paid him a visit and David had no idea what Nathan wanted. David didn’t mind the preacher visiting because he was a spiritual man and delighted in God and in His word. Nathan told a parable and David didn’t know that the parable would end with You are the man! When Nathan had gotten through, the illusion of his life had melted away leaving him alone with these two – conscious of guilt and divine displeasure. These two things destroy the joy of life (2 Cor. 2:2 – if we sadden God who is left to make us glad?), and David wanted it restored to him. He had lost what the world could not give and all the world cannot make up for. It is also implied that that he believed the Lord was willing and able to do so.
There are all sorts of joys in the world and some of them we can attain for ourselves by our own efforts, but there are deeper joys that only God can give. David knew that the greatest of all joys was the joy of salvation and only God could give that for only God can save – there is no Saviour beside me said God through Isaiah. He believed in God’s forgiving and restoring grace, and as he wrestled with the great issues of his life that Nathan had focused his mind upon, he was like one emerging from a deep cave where no ray of light had shone, and he stands, not yet in the light, but sees it at the mouth of the cave and knows that a few more steps will bring into full sunshine. Why had he missed it?
In his case, sin. Nathan’s parable brought it home to him. It is a warning to us that neither grace nor gifts are any security to one who neglects to watch and pray. Why grieve the very One upon whom we depend for our encouragement and joy? What good is a religion that brings no joy? Joy is something that other religions have no focus upon – Buddhism, Islam, et.al. have no capacity for joy. In the fruits of the Spirit, joy is at the top of the list. A man doing research on joy found 4600 papers on depression but only 400 on joy. We are not talking about ‘fun’ here. The world is into fun. Fun is based on circumstances and so is happiness to a large degree. When circumstances change, fun and happiness disappear. Happiness lives where sorrow is not and when sorrow comes, happiness and fun leave. But joy can remain. Joy is mentioned 14 times in 104 verses of Philippians – and this was a letter written from prison!
Why is joy important? For one thing, we don’t like the opposite. But perhaps more importantly, it is a vital ingredient to our future constancy. Ps. 51:12b in the K.J.V. says uphold me with thy spirit, but there is no thy in the text. The N.I.V. is better when it says grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me (also N.A.S.V.). We can poke along crippled in spirit for only so long until we drop out. Joy is to the Christian life what sparkplugs are to a motor. Doubt, sorrow, remorse, depression tend to paralise all the powers of prayer, action, and resistance to evil. A joyous willing mind has strength for the future, because it has conquered the past; for that is the condition of its joyousness. We won’t evangelize if we have no joy – how can you share out of your misery? It would appear we would have nothing to offer. There is nothing that will maintain Christian joy like sharing the gospel with others. You cannot share the eternal truths without reminding yourself of those same realities. But it can be a viscous spiral – loss of joy and a resultant retreat into self – I share the gospel with no one – I feel guilty which results in less joy and more retreat and so on.
What causes the joy of which we speak? In short, it is the consciousness of God’s favour. Salvation is a deliverance from the greatest danger the soul can apprehend, and is therefore the ground for the most rapturous joy the soul can experience. How do we obtain such joy in the first place? Godly sorrow which leads to repentance – one of the conundrums of the Bible – no joy (of salvation) without sorrow (for sin). Blessed are they that mourn. By the indulgence of sin we forfeit the joy of salvation. We exchange eternal joy for the temporary pleasure of sin. Joy is that feeling of delight which arises from the possession of the present good, or from the anticipation of future happiness: and in both respects the believer has abundant reason for constant joy. He possesses the blessedness of forgiveness and the sure prospect of eternal life, and he has the consciousness that all things work together for good to them that love God. God wishes His people to be happy, and does not suffer them to be indifferent to their own peace. He commands them to rejoice, yea, to rejoice evermore. (Pulpit Commentary). But sin as David’s would not be the only reason to lose it.
The Ephesian Christians had lost it too (Rev. 2:1ff). Why does it happen? 2 Cor. 6:10 says we can rejoice under pressure – why? Because we are forced to focus on the eternal realities. But good times can sap us (Heb. 10:32). We need a reminder of what we have been saved from. Preaching on the penalty of sin and Hell is positive, not negative. Preaching on sin and its penalty not only warns us against sin which destroys our joy, but also reminds us of what we are saved from and the subsequent joy that attends that thought. Remember your joy at conversion when you rose from the watery grave of baptism? What, in part, caused that joy? Reflections on deliverance from Hell! It was a focus on eternal realities, and those realities are still true. The Ephesians had to go back to the beginning works which they did at their conversion (‘things at accompany salvation’ Heb. 6:9). They weren’t apostates, but their hands were hanging down and they were just limping along. The joy of salvation was gone.
The elder son had lost it too, along with the prodigal. The father had to remind him of what he had. He had no reason to be envious of the Prodigal’s joy and the rejoicing of the household. We need to count our blessings lest we take them for granted. Even salvation can be taken for granted. I once saw a cartoon of a champion car driver being interviewed sitting in his favourite chair at home with one of his trophy cups beside him in which he dropped the ashes of his cigarette. The interviewer asked whether it would be fair to say the thrill had gone out of winning. (Well, it tickled me).
The book of Hebrews deals with the fact those early Christians had lost sight of the superiority of the New Covenant in Christ. What blessings would I have if I wasn’t in Christ? Would I have more or less? It’s a moot point at best. Many Christians assume they have made great sacrifices for Christ physically – better job, no contributions to make etc. That may be true but it may not be – you may be dead by now if you had not become a Christian. You may have drunk your way to an early grave or gambled your way to bankruptcy or be riddled with VD or AIDS, or be enduring one or more of another million possibilities if you had chosen to grab all the gusto you could. Don’t ever assume that you’d be better off physically or financially or socially either, for that matter. You may be living on snob hill but you’d be living amongst a bunch of snobs. Nothing matches the church for even social blessings (Mark 10:30). Nothing the world has to offer can compare with Heb. 13:5 – I will never leave you or forsake you. Nothing compares with Matt. 6:33 – Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all the things you need will be added to you.
But supposing one obtained more physical advantages by not being a Christian, that would not be compared with what you would have as a Christian in the realm of spiritual blessings. What will a man give in exchange for his soul? asked Jesus. And even if we want to play the martyr and talk about our sufferings, Paul says they are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. Eph.1:3 informs us that every spiritual blessing is to be found in Christ – is that not worthy anything? – is that not precious beyond price?
Rom. 12:2 speaks of the renewing of the mind. A father, mother and 12-year-old son were sitting at a table in a restaurant. The father said to the boy “drink your tomato juice”. The mother said, “Don’t make him do what he doesn’t want to do”. And the father looked at her and said, “He cannot go through life doing what he wants to do. If he only does what he wants to, he will be dead. Look at me, I have never done a thing I wanted to do all my life.” How sad that is, even if it was only half-true. Could that be true of Christians? When we walk in His footsteps it may start off rather mechanically, but as time goes by we ought to get an appreciation of the mind of Christ (Phil. 2:5). Many people try to obey the Lord but never get around to agreeing with the Lord, so they don’t understand that there is life in the principles of Christ and so their Christian walk remains mechanical and there is no joy.
Phil. 4:4 tells us to rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice! We must look for the reasons as to why and how we could do this, and in the looking we will find all the reasons we need to rejoice evermore.