FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT
JOY
DR. JIM DIXON
PHILIPPIANS 4:4-8
NOVEMBER 15, 1992
In the 19th century, Felix Mendelssohn, the renowned composer, conductor, pianist, and painter, composed an orchestral piece to celebrate the joy of life. He knew that someday someone would put lyrics to his melody. His only request was that the words be words of joy because, he said, the melody was one of joy. Now, after Mendelssohn’s death, they took the words of Charles Wesley and joined them to the melody of Felix Mendelssohn and they created the great Christmas hymn “Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Glory to the New Born King.” I think Mendelssohn would have been pleased because there is no message of greater joy than the message of Jesus Christ. “Behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which shall come to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is the supreme source of joy. In the scripture, our Lord Jesus Christ tells us that it is His desire that His joy might be in us, and our joy might be full. It is Jesus Christ who is the giver of the Holy Spirit, and the fruit of the Spirit is joy.
Now, in light of all of this, we might well ask why it is that some Christians are so miserable. I mean why do Christians not smile more or laugh more? Why is there not more happiness for many Christians? Why does life not hold more gratitude and more thanksgiving? Now it is my observation in talking with people that I think it is a very rare thing to find a Christian who will admit that he or she lacks joy. Most Christians, no matter how miserable they are, believe they have joy. The argument goes something like this. I know I am not happy, but happiness has to do with happenings and joy transcends all that. Joy is kind of undefinable and I do not know what it is, but I know I have it.
Now the problem is that biblically, when you look at the word joy, it is the word “chara.” Biblically this word has very much to do with happiness. It is very closely linked in the Bible with “mocharezio.” It is very closely linked in the Bible with happiness. It is linked with laughter and joy is definitely linked with gratitude and thanksgiving. In fact, the biblical word for thanksgiving and the biblical word for joy have the same root. Indeed, the biblical word for rejoicing and the biblical word for joy have the same root.
I think we all need to admit that perhaps even as Christians we could use a little more joy in our lives. I think we can have more joy if we would do a few things. First of all, we need to believe correctly. You see, the Bible says in Romans 8:28, “All things work together for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.” Now if you believe that if you really believe that “all things work together for good,” you are believing correctly and you are going to have joy. The problem is, I think, oftentimes we doubt this that things are going to really work together for good.
Now you remember in the Bible how Joseph was the 11th son of Jacob. He was the grandchild of Isaac. Joseph’s brothers hated him and many of them wanted to kill him. They threw him near the region of Dothan they threw him into a pit. Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt. His life seemed to be utterly ruined but Joseph had faith in God. Joseph loved God and the hand of God was upon his life. There in Egypt God prospered Joseph and he rose to power and came to Pharaoh’s right hand. As the years passed, there came a time when Joseph was reunited with his brothers once again. You will remember how Joseph said to his brothers “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”
That is how God wants us to go through life, realizing that no matter how evil the plans are perpetrated against us by Satan or by others, that God can use all things for good. No matter what you are going through in life… and I do not know your pain. I mean I know some of your pain and I have talked to some of you. I know there is pain in life. I know I have pain in my life. I know that life’s not always easy, but I also know we have a great God, and He can work all things together for good. We can go through anything We can give thanks, as the Bible says, in all circumstances if we really believe that God can take that situation and bring blessing out of it. God wants us never to forget that our destiny is heaven, and we are going to win the victory. I mean that is already promised.
You know, a few weeks ago, I was watching the Bronco-Kansas City game. I confess that I am a Bronco fan. I really get into the game. I was watching the game I was up at my brother’s house, and we were watching it together. The game was not going well. It seemed like—it was a very frustrating game. It just seemed like everything was going wrong. Then we came to near the end of the game, just a couple of minutes left, and Kansas City was ahead 20 to 7. I left. I just said, “I can’t watch this anymore. The game is over.” I started walking down the block because I live down the street from my brother.
I ran into Bo Mitchell. Bo was just coming out of the house. He was disgusted. He talked about the donkeys and how they could never win. I went in the house and just on a lark I turned on the TV just to see what was happening and the Broncos were coming back. Of course you know the Broncos won the game with two miraculous touchdowns in the final few minutes. Because I was not sure whether I was going to be able to see all of the game, I had taped the game. I went back later and watched part of it. It was interesting that at the same part of the game with which I had previously been highly frustrated did not even bother me anymore. It did not bother me because I knew, I mean I knew how it was going to come out. I knew they were going to score big at the end and it was all going to be okay. Now God wants us to go through life with something of an attitude like that. I mean you can smile. You can laugh when you realize it does not matter what disease you have. It does not matter whether you just lost your job. It is going to be okay if you love Jesus Christ and He wants you to believe that. You can have joy.
Now we not only need to believe correctly, but we also need to think correctly. This takes us to our passage of scripture for today. We are in Philippians, chapter 4, verse eight. The Apostle Paul says “Finally, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there be any excellence, if there be anything worthy of praise, think on those things.” Now I have never been a big Norman Vincent Peale fan or a Robert Schuller fan. There have been times when I felt like maybe they could come out a little bit stronger on the gospel and the expounding of the word of God. But positive thinking, biblically, is the will of God as long as that positive thinking is rooted in faith in Jesus Christ. If you really believe in Jesus Christ, then you have reason to think positively. The Bible clearly tells us God does want us to think positively and that is not easy. At least it is not easy for me. I have times when I get pulled down by the negative. I do not know whether you are ever like that, but I know I am.
Now let me share with you just a little bit of a personal nature. It is a hard time in our church. I mean there is a lot of wonderful things, but it is really a hard time in our church. We are in the midst of a transition. I would compare what our church is going through, by way of analogy, to a lobster. Now I know there is few people who would do this. You see, lobsters molt. Now, molting has to do with the putting off of one’s shell. That is what molting is. Lobsters, in the course of their life, molt many times. They have to put off their shell time and again. You see, the lobster grows within the shell. The problem is the lobster is getting bigger and bigger, but the shell does not grow. The shell stays the same size. The shell protects the lobster while the lobster grows. The shell serves a great purpose but there comes a point when the lobster is becoming too big for the shell. The lobster has to get out of there. If the lobster does not get out of there, that shell will become a prison and ultimately a casket for the lobster so the lobster must leave the shell as it grows bigger.
Now there is a dangerous transition time when the lobster has not yet fully formed its new shell, and yet it is out of the old shell, and it is vulnerable. It gets thrown about into coral and reef and there are schools of fish that are hungry and would love to make the lobster part of the food chain. It is a difficult time for the lobster. Perhaps, the lobster thinks, if the lobster thinks at all, that it would like to be back in the old shell. But, of course, the old shell is a deathtrap so the lobster must persevere, must build that new shell. Now it seems to me that our church is kind of in a situation like that. I mean we made the decision to leave this shell. We loved this shell. It has served us well, but we have realized that not simply our growth but the desire that Christ has for us demands a new shell.
Yet it is a hard time, a dangerous time. Any large church that is seeking to move it is extremely difficult because suddenly, in addition to having a general operating budget, suddenly you also have a building fund, and that puts a double load on the congregation and upon congregational giving. Usually the effort to give to the building fund hurts the giving to the operating budget and that is what we are going through. We have a $3.8 million operating budget for ministry in this church. Some of it goes to the payment of debt on this building, but most of it is for staff and ministry. Now, the elder board has come to me and said, “Jim, we’re running short and even if we have a good November and December, it looks like we’re going to come in maybe $300,000 or $350,000 short on the general operating budget.” Now do not let anyone tell you that this means people are not giving. I must say to you that people are giving. Our congregation is giving more than it is ever given before, but the problem is, you see, we are trying to juggle an operating budget and a building fund and that is a hard load. It is a great challenge.
So the elder board has said to me, “Well, it looks like we’re going to come in $350,000 short and we’re going to have to cut that out of our staff and ministry.” We are going to set next year’s budget, the 1993 budget, on the actual giving of 1992. If we come in $350,000 short, we have to cut $350,000. We need to take it from the staff, so I have had to sit down with the finance committee in recent weeks. We have been saying “Well if we’re $100,000 short, who do we cut? If we are $200,000 short, who do we cut? If we are $300,000 short, who do we cut? If we are $400,000 short, who do we cut?”
I have to tell you I have never gone through anything so miserable in my life. If we had a ministry area that did not seem like it was really critical to the service of Christ’s kingdom, we could set it aside. If we have a staff person who is ill-gifted, ill- prepared, not performing out of perhaps not being in their proper job, I will do what is necessary. But if we have a ministry that seems idle to Christ’s kingdom and staff that are gifted and faithful, it just feels ugly to me to have to cut back. It feels like you have grieved the Holy Spirit. Now I would not be honest if I did not tell you that this has really gotten me down. It has gotten me down and there have been times of despair and I have definitely lost my joy. I say that by way of confession. Now God has had to remind me again, and I think continually, that I need to believe correctly that all things can work together for good, that God is equal to the challenge, that what God calls us to, God empowers us to do. I have had to be reminded of that. Then also to think correctly.
First of all, I do believe this congregation that God has given this congregation God has given you God has given us the resources to rescue this situation. I believe that. I also believe God is going to move. At times I doubt it but in my better moments I really believe that God is going to move. I am kind of expecting something special and I do not know what it is.
But I also am reminded by the Lord that I need to think about the good things because there are so many good and wonderful things that God is doing in this church and through this church. I mean there is so much to rejoice in. Our music ministry I do not know about you but when I am when I travel and I go to other churches, I do not go to any church like this. I think this church I know I am prejudiced, biased but I think this church is absolutely wonderful. I believe our music program is the best in the country. I am so ministered to. I could sit here this morning and listen to that music. I mean when Lance and the band is playing Bach’s “Jesu Joy,” I am thinking I have never heard anything like this. It is so wonderful.
You know we videotape the services now for shut-ins. I took a copy of the video tape from last week’s services home, and I watched that. I thought that was the most wonderful service. I thought Bob gave one of the best sermons I have ever heard in my life. I mean I look at the ministry of this church and it is exciting. I think we have a great staff, an incredible staff. Gene Kissinger tells me that just in this last month, more than 350 of our members have volunteered to go into the inner city and share the love of Christ with people who are hurting and poor. More than 350 of you.
In this last year, 1,700 of you did volunteer ministries in this church. That is worth rejoicing over. We hear constantly of men and women who give their heart to Christ through the ministries of this church or have strength to just live another week or are given hope in the midst of hard situations. I think God wants us to take a look at that and think about that so that our joy might be full. I think that is a second prescription from Christ to believe correctly, think correctly, and then behave correctly. That is the third one, behave correctly. In the Bible, our Lord Jesus Christ said, “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love even as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These words I have spoken to you that My joy might be in you and your joy might be full.” Somehow when we are out of God’s will and we are not obeying Christ, we lose joy.
I know for Barb and me, as we have reared our kids through the years, when Heather and Drew were younger and we had to discipline them because they had done something wrong, they definitely lost their joy for a little while. It was not just because of the discipline but it was because they felt that there was something broken between Barb and I and them. Until they could see that that was right, they did not have their joy. I think we are that way with the Father in heaven—that when we are out of His will and we are participating in sin and we are disobeying the Word of God, at some level at least deep within us there is going to be guilt. There is going to be some loss of joy. Now we do not have time… There is much that could be said about behaving correctly but I want to get to the fourth and final point.
I think the fourth thing we can do in terms of releasing the joy of Christ within us is relating correctly. Believe correctly, think correctly, behave correctly, and relate correctly. I am thinking specifically of our relationship with God. You see, the Bible says, “In God’s presence is fullness of joy.” Now if that is true, if in God’s presence there is fullness of joy, then I want to be in God’s presence as often as possible and you want to be in God’s presence as often as possible. “Within His presence is fullness of joy.” You see, we come into His presence as we learn to commune with Him. We learn to commune with Him as we develop relationship with Him.
I do not know what your devotional life is like, but I want to promise you this. Even if we believe correctly and even if you think correctly and even if you behave correctly, if you are not daily coming into God’s presence, you will not have the full measure of joy. If you are not spending time daily in prayer, in His Word.
I think a lot of people really do not understand the purpose of the Bible. I think of an illustration of a man named King Menelik II. Some of you have heard of him because he was the founder in 1896 of the nation of Ethiopia, the modern nation of Ethiopia. King Menelik II had a lot of incredible qualities. He was a brilliant man, though he did some dumb things. He tried to modernize Ethiopia and he even tried to modernize its criminal justice system. He wanted to have the latest techniques of capital punishment. When the electric chair was invented right here in the United States, King Menelik II purchased six of them, only to be informed by his engineers that they had no electricity in Ethiopia.
But, you see, one of the most incredible things about this guy was his view of the Bible because he believed the Bible was kind of a supernatural book. He had a superstitious view of the Bible. He thought the Bible had curative healing powers. So whenever he got sick, he would eat a page in the Bible. Now this is in the historical record. I tell you. This is truth. He would eat a page of the Bible whenever he got sick. If he were particularly sick, he would eat a couple of pages. He would just, you know, devour it. Then in 1913, when he became very ill, and he thought he really needed a heavy dose, he ate the entire books of I and II Kings. He died of an intestinal obstruction. That is the truth.
Now you might think, “Incredible!” You might think, what theological naivete. How can this man be so ignorant? How can he have such a primitive view of the Bible? But I would suggest to you as sophisticated as we are theologically that maybe we do not have the best view of the Bible either. I think there is a lot of Christians who do not really understand the purpose, the primary purpose, of the word of God. I think some of you think the primary purpose of the Bible is to give you knowledge of the truth, and that is one of the purposes of the Bible but that is not the primary purpose of the Bible. I think some of you actually think the primary purpose of the Bible is to instruct Christians on how to live their life day-by-day. That also is one of the purposes of the Bible but that is not the primary purpose of the Bible. The primary purpose of the word of God is to bring you into relationship with Jesus Christ and then to cultivate that relationship.
That is the primary purpose. It is relational. “These are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing, you might have life in His name. We are writing this so you may have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with the Father, with His Son Jesus Christ. We are writing this so your joy might be full.” The purpose of the Bible supremely is to invite you into a relationship with Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and then to cultivate that communion, cultivate that relationship. That is why the Bible is so critical devotionally, that you learn daily to combine prayer and scripture reading and the cultivation of a friendship and a relationship with God in His fullness, that the joy of God might be yours. So believe correctly, think correctly, relate correctly, and behave correctly.
In conclusion, I want to tell you a little story about the movie the The Sound Of Music. I think most of you probably, long ago, saw the movie The Sound Of Music. It won many academy awards and was a great movie. At the end of the 1960’s, the movie The Sound Of Music arrived in South Korea, in Seoul, South Korea. The managers of the theaters in Seoul, South Korea decided that, incredibly, the movie The Sound Of Music was too long. They decided it was too long and they did not want to run a movie this long in the city of Seoul, so they did a strange thing. They cut out all of the songs. Now I think it is safe to say that really shortened it up. That really shortened it up, so they played The Sound Of Music without any music. I think you and I would agree, “What is the point?”
Now it occurs to me there are a lot of Christians that kind of go through life and they have cut out the songs. They have really cut out the songs. Maybe these people are efficient, and they may be confident. They may be industrious. They may even be by the world’s standards successful, but they are joyless because they cut out the songs. I want to suggest to you today that you are going to cut out the songs unless you come into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and then believe that He works all things for good and you learn to think on whatsoever is good and lovely and you learn to walk in accordance with His will day-by-day and you learn to cultivate that friendship, that relationship with Jesus Christ. Let us close with a word of prayer.