The Overflow of Joy
But does joy really matter? It certainly mattered to the apostle John, who tells us that what drove him to write was his concern that his readers’ joy should be complete (1 John 1:4). We have already seen the link between joy and obedience in the life of our Lord. The same link holds in our own Christian lives. “Holy joy,” wrote Matthew Henry, “is the oil to the wheels of our obedience.” It was this same principle that Jonathan Edwards highlighted when he wrote that God had made our affections the spring of our actions, adding, “The Scriptures speak of holy joy as a great part of true religion.”
This was clearly exemplified in the life of the apostle Paul, the supreme example of “labors more abundant” (2 Corinthians 11:23). This is what joy does. It overflows.
William Wordsworth once defined poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” However inadequate these words may be as a definition of poetry (Milton’s Paradise Lost was certainly not spontaneous), we have every right to introduce Wordsworth’s language into the vocabulary of the Christian life. Our service is the spontaneous overflow of powerful Christian joy, deeply rooted in union with Christ and sharply focused on the beauty of his gospel. Where there is such joy, there can be no lukewarm-ness. It overflows in spontaneous obedience.
The Strength of Joy
We see the same principle at work in the life of Nehemiah, one of the great action-men of the Old Testament. When the work of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem had been completed, all the people assembled to hear Ezra read the Book of the Law, but as Ezra read, Nehemiah noticed that the people were weeping (Nehemiah 8:9).
The terrifying corollary to this is that without joy we are impotent, like Samson shorn of his strength, and this has huge implications for every pastoral and preaching ministry. How can we equip the saints for works of service? We are in grave danger of falling into the patterns of the secular world and its obsession with special courses, training-programs, consultants and even boot-camps; and when all else fails, simply off-loading huge burdens of guilt onto demoralized congregations, whose commitment never seems to match our expectations.
But if Paul is to be believed, the task of motivating and equipping Christians for service is neither more nor less than the ordinary, stated work of pastor-teachers; and if Nehemiah is to be believed, the primary way to achieve that object is by filling their hearts with joy; which in turn means filling their minds with constant reminders of the breadth and depth and length and height of the love of Christ (Ephesians 3:18–19).
Sorrow, especially for our own sin, has its place. But it is not our strength. That lies in the joy of forgiveness.
