CHAPTER 8
Joy in God Is a Gift of God
Doing Ourselves What Must Be Done for Us
The title of this chapter is good news for the hopeless and bad news for the self-reliant. Or to put it another way: It is liberating and devastating. It liberates from despair the person who knows that he cannot make himself desire what he does not desire. And it devastates the presumption of the person who thought that all his duties were in his own power.
A Half-Right Denial
One of the reasons people deny that delighting in God is essential is that they know intuitively that this delight is beyond their control, and they feel that something beyond their control cannot be required. They are half right.
In the end, joy in God is a free gift, not a self-wrought human accomplishment. That’s right. But it is not biblical to say that the only virtues God can require of me are the ones that I am good enough to perform.
If I am so bad that I can’t delight in what is good, that is no reason God can’t command me to love the good.
If I am so corrupt that I can’t enjoy what is infinitely beautiful, that does not make me less guilty for disobeying the command to delight in God (Psalm 37:4). It makes me more guilty.
The Duty to Delight in God
The fact that joy in God is a duty is plain from the straightforward biblical commands to do it. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4 ESV; see also Psalm 32:11; 37:4; 97:12; 100:1; Joel 2:23).
Matthew Henry, writing in the seventeenth century, speaks on behalf of two thousand years of sober reflection on these words:
Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say Rejoice (v. 4). All our joy must terminate in God; and our thoughts of God must be delightful thoughts. Delight Thyself in the Lord (Psalm 37:4). . . . Observe, It is our duty and privilege to rejoice in God, and to rejoice in him always; at all times, in all conditions; even when we suffer for him, or are afflicted by him. We must not think the worse of him or of his ways for the hardships we meet with in his service. There is enough in God to furnish us with matter of joy in the worst circumstance on earth. . . . Joy in God is a duty of great consequence in the Christian life; and Christians need to be again and again called to it.
Since joy in God is a duty, some say it can’t be a gift. But consider now what the Bible says about this. Then we will close this chapter by asking why it matters.
We Don’t Just Do Sins, We Are Sinners
Among those who believe the Bible to be the Word of God, it is a commonplace to say that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 ESV). That is a profound and all-important truth. But it’s not the whole story.
The problem is not that we have all done acts that are sinful, but that we are sinful. N. P. Williams put it like this: “The ordinary man may feel ashamed of doing wrong: but the saint, endowed with a superior refinement of moral sensibility, and keener powers of introspection, is ashamed of being the kind of man who is liable to do wrong.”
Sin is not just something we do; it is a power deeply rooted in our nature. When we are converted to Christ, the Holy Spirit is given to us, and by his power we begin to overcome our fallen, sinful nature.
But by nature we are rebellious, disobedient, and hardened against God. Thus the psalmist cries out, “Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you” (Psalm 143:2 ESV).
The prophet Jeremiah bemoans the truth that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 ESV).
King David traced this condition back to his birth: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5 ESV).
This inborn corruption is so severe that Paul says, “I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh” (Romans 7:18 ESV).
What Paul means by “flesh” is not his skin, but his natural self apart from the redemption of Christ and apart from the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. Another way Paul refers to the “flesh” is by calling it simply the “natural person”—that is, the person we are by nature, without Christ.
So he says, for example, in 1 Corinthians 2:14, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (ESV).
In other words, “the natural person,” or “the flesh,” is so resistant to spiritual reality that he can’t understand or accept the things of God. This person will not delight in God. The natural heart is so corrupt in its desires that it cannot see or savor the beauty of Christ.
That’s what Paul means when he says in Romans 8:7-8 that the mind of the flesh “is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (ESV). Notice the word cannot. It’s used twice.
The natural person, the person defined by flesh, but not yet changed by Christ, is so hostile in mind to God’s glorious authority (not submitting to his law) that he cannot delight in God or rejoice in his ways. He can do many religious and moral things, but his heart is far from God (Matthew 15:8), and he cannot make himself stop seeing the greatness and authority of God as undesirable.
How Then Are We Dead?
It is not surprising then to hear Paul describe us, in this fallen, natural, fleshly condition as “dead.” That’s what he says in Ephesians 2:4-5: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” (ESV). The deepest reason why we cannot rejoice in the Lord is that by nature we are dead.
That is, we have no spiritual sensitivity to the truth and beauty of the gospel of Christ. We are like the blind in the art gallery of heaven. Our deadness is not the deadness of the body. It’s not even the deadness of the intellect or the will. It is the deadness of the spiritual ability to see reality for what it is.
Paul describes our deadness to divine beauty with phrases like “futility of mind” and “darkened in understanding” and “ignorance that is in us.” And he traces it back to “hardness of heart.” You see this in Ephesians 4:17-18: “You must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart” (ESV).
Ignorance is rooted in hardness, not the other way around. Therefore we are not excused. The problem with our ignorance of God’s beauty is not innocent unawareness, but culpable hardness.
Notice that hardness is deeper than ignorance. Ignorance is rooted in hardness, not the other way around. Therefore we are not excused. The problem with our ignorance of God’s beauty is not innocent unawareness, but culpable hardness. Our hardness is our deadness, and our deadness makes us unable to submit to the command, Love the Lord with all your heart.
Because of this fallen, sinful, hardened, rebellious, futile, dead condition of our hearts, joy in God is impossible. Not impossible in a way that makes us less guilty, but more guilty. When the rich young ruler walked away from Jesus because he delighted more in his riches than in following Christ, Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24 ESV).
The disciples were astonished at this. They knew that a camel cannot go through the eye of a needle. That’s true. And humans cannot make themselves delight in Christ more than money. So Jesus answered, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (v. 26).
Coming to Jesus for Joy Is a Gift of God
This was Jesus’ way of saying that joy in God is a gift. Preferring Jesus to money is a gift of God. We can’t produce it on our own. It must be given to us. When Jesus is presented to us as the most desirable Person, Lord, Savior, and Friend in the universe, we will not come to him on our own. Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. . . . No one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father” (John 6:44, 65 ESV).
Coming to Jesus as the Treasure and Pleasure of our lives is “granted . . . by the Father” or it doesn’t happen. We are too hard and rebellious in ourselves even to see Jesus as attractive, let alone leave all and come to him as our all-satisfying Joy.
When you see Jesus as your Treasure, the Spirit has blown through your heart. Your joy in Jesus is a gift.
Jesus said it another way. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again’” (John 3:6-7 ESV). Until we are born again by the Spirit of God, all we are is “flesh”—natural people with no spiritual life, no living taste buds in the soul for the sweetness of Christ.
How then are we made alive? The next thing out of Jesus’ mouth is, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (v. 8).
The point is that the Spirit is free. He blows where he wills. We don’t control him. He controls us. His life-giving work is pure gift. When you see Jesus as your Treasure, the Spirit has blown through your heart. Your joy in Jesus is a gift.
Is Repentance Too a Gift?
Someone may say, “This sounds like repentance. But isn’t repentance something we do? Are you saying repentance also is a gift?” That’s a good question. The transformation we’ve described is indeed repentance.
Repentance refers to the experience of a changed mind. Once the mind was hostile to God, but now the mind is in love with God. Once the crucifixion of Christ seemed foolish, but now it is precious to us. It’s the wisdom and power of God (1 Corinthians 1:23-24).
Once the mind trusted in human ability to achieve happiness and security, but now the mind despairs of itself and looks to Christ for hope and joy. Christ—and all that God is for us in him—has become our happiness and our security.
Yes, that is repentance. And, yes, repentance is a gift. We do not make ourselves into Christ-adoring people. We do not muster enough human wisdom or strength or willpower to deliver ourselves from the captivity of Satan’s deceits. No, that is all a precious gift of God.
Oh, he uses human means to bring it about. Otherwise I would not be writing this book. But in the end, no human means make the miracle of repentance happen.
You can see both the means and the miracle in 2 Timothy 2:24-26: “The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. [That’s the means. Now the miracle.] God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will” (ESV). We teach and we love, but God grants repentance.
I pray that this book will be used by God as one of his many means to “grant . . . repentance.” But in the end, it will be God, and not this book, or any book, that delivers a person from the captivity of the devil’s deceit and opens his eyes to see the superior worth of Jesus Christ.
Then, when God grants repentance, he will prize Christ above all treasures and savor him above all pleasures. That is a gift. I pray for every reader who needs it: Lord, grant them repentance.
The Central Mystery of the Christian Life
But the question was asked above, “Isn’t repentance something we do? If it’s a gift of God, how do we do it?” Yes, repentance is something we do. After Peter preached a convicting message at Pentecost, the crowd cried, “Brothers, what shall we do?” To this Peter answered, “Repent” (Acts 2:37-38). He said more. But that’s the point at issue here. Repentance is a command that we are responsible to obey.
Here we have arrived at the central mystery of living the Christian life. Christ has died for our sins and risen from the dead. Because of his blood and righteousness we are forgiven and counted righteous by God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21; Philippians. 3:9; Romans 5:19).
Therefore, Christ has become the Yes to all God’s promises (2 Corinthians 1:20). Everything promised by the prophets for the new covenant has been purchased for us infallibly by Christ.
These new-covenant promises include, “The Lord your God will circumcise your heart . . . so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart” (Deuteronomy 30:6 ESV); and, “I will put my law within them . . . on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33 ESV); and, “I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 11:19 ESV); and, “I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes” (Ezekiel 36:27 ESV).
All of these new-covenant promises have been secured for us by Christ who said at the Last Supper, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20 ESV). The blood of Christ obtained for us all the promises of the new covenant.
But look again at these promises. What distinguishes them from the old covenant is that they are promises for enablement. They are promises that God will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
We need a new heart to delight in God. We need the Spirit of God whose fruit is joy in God. We need to have the law written on our heart, not just written on stone, so that when it says, “Love the Lord with all your heart,” the Word itself produces the reality within us.
In other words, we need the gift of joy in God. Left to ourselves, we will not produce it. That’s what Christ bought for us when he died and shed the blood of the new covenant. He bought for us the gift of joy in God.
The Other Half of the Mystery
That is half the mystery of the Christian life—the most crucial half. The other half is that we are commanded to do what we cannot do. And we must do it or perish. Our inability does not remove our guilt—it deepens it. We are so bad that we cannot love God. We cannot delight in God above all things. We cannot treasure Christ above money.
Our entrenched badness does not make it wrong for God to command us to be good. We ought to delight in God above all things. Therefore it is right for God to command us to delight in God above all things. And if we ever do delight in God, it will be because we have obeyed this command.
That is the mystery: We must obey the command to rejoice in the Lord, and we cannot, because of our willful and culpable corruption. Therefore obedience, when it happens, is a gift.
The heretic Pelagius in the fourth century rejected this truth and was shocked and angered when he saw the way St. Augustine prayed in his Confessions. Augustine prayed, “Give me the grace [O Lord] to do as you command, and command me to do what you will!…O holy God…when your commands are obeyed, it is from you that we receive the power to obey them.”
The Christian Life Is All of Grace
That is a biblical prayer, and we will see many like it in the chapters to come (e.g., Psalm 51:12; 90:14; Romans 15:13). It corresponds to the mystery of the Christian life. We must delight in God. And only God can change our hearts so that we delight in God. We are thrown back on God utterly.
The Christian life is all of grace. “From him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever” (Romans 11:36 ESV).
In the next chapter I will talk about the kind of willing and doing involved in obeying the command to rejoice, when this rejoicing itself is a gift. We do not stop and become passive when we hear that joy is a gift. We act. How and why we act is the question we will take up in the next chapter. But first I promised that we would ask why the truth of this chapter matters.
Why Does Believing This Matter?
The first reason is that truth matters, and we should believe and embrace it whether we can see how it benefits us or not. This is what the Bible says about us and about joy in God. We can’t produce it; God must give it. That is true, and we should believe and love the truth.
Second, when we believe this truth, our joy in God is multiplied because it is compounded with gratitude. In all our joy we are thankful to God, the Giver, that we delight in God.
Third, when we believe this truth, we will seek our joy from God with greater urgency than if we thought it was in our power. This truth sets us to praying as never before.
Fourth, believing this truth will prevent our strategies in the fight for joy from degenerating into technique and legalism. Technique cannot be paramount because God is sovereign. There are things we must do in the battle for joy. But if joy is a gift, it can never be earned. So legalism that tries to earn things from God is excluded.
Not only that, but knowing that joy is ultimately a gift, and not a mere human achievement, also protects us from elevating technique and willpower too highly.
Our strategies must be humble and dependent, followed by “May the Lord do what seems good to him” (2 Samuel 10:12 ESV). Our strategies to fight for joy are simply means of God’s grace. And means of grace are always modest.
The Bible illustrates the modesty of means in numerous ways. “The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord” (Proverbs 21:31 ESV). “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain” (Psalm 127:1 ESV). “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand” (Proverbs 19:21 ESV). If joy is a gift from God, we will use all his appointed means, but we will not trust in means, but in God.
Fifth, believing that joy in God is a gift of God will give all the glory to God. This is the goal of the Christian life—to live in a way that will show God to be most wonderful. The apostle Peter gives a principle in 1 Peter 4:11 for how to do that. He says, “Whoever serves, [let him serve] as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (ESV).
The strength to serve is a gift. God supplies it. When we believe that and lean on it consciously, we show God to be the glorious giver of the strength. The giver gets the glory.
We may paraphrase like this: “Let him who rejoices in the Lord, rejoice in the joy that God supplies, so that in everything—including our joy—God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.”
Therefore, believing that joy in God is a gift from God is essential in our calling to live for the glory of God. It shapes all our other strategies. It makes them humble. It makes them into acts of faith. In everything we do in our quest for joy we are praying and trusting the grace of God for a gift.
May this truth liberate the despairing soul and humble the proud.