Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / The Flavors of Holy Joy

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The Flavors of Holy Joy · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: We like to think in simple categories. It's just easier
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  Speaker 1: that way. And it's easier to be clear in explaining
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  Speaker 1: things to other people too. So if I ask you,
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  Speaker 1: how are you doing? You'll probably respond in terms of
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  Speaker 1: good or bad. And then you'll explain why you're feeling
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  Speaker 1: good or bad. By default, we're typically doing fine until
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  Speaker 1: we're doing bad. But it's normally one or the other.
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  Speaker 1: It's up or down. Kind of like a light switch.
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  Speaker 1: We're good or bad. Then along comes the Apostle Paul,
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  Speaker 1: and he pulls this on-off switch off the wall and
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  Speaker 1: shatters it into a thousand pieces to teach us that,
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  Speaker 1: in fact, the very good and the very bad can
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  Speaker 1: coexist in this life. Today on Ask Pastor John, the
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  Speaker 1: many flavors of holy joy. It's a question from an
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  Speaker 1: anonymous listener to the podcast. Pastor John, you have been
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  Speaker 1: writing and speaking for decades about the importance of joy
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  Speaker 1: in the life of God and the life of a Christian.
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  Speaker 1: You've made the case that joy in God, not only
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  Speaker 1: in his gifts, but in his person. is essential to
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  Speaker 1: glorifying God. You have argued that the reason that God's God-centeredness,
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  Speaker 1: his pursuit of his own glorification in all that he does,
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  Speaker 1: is not megalomania, precisely because he magnifies his glory through
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  Speaker 1: our enjoyment of him. You pointed out that the Apostle
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  Speaker 1: Paul not only spoke of being sorrowful yet always rejoicing,
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  Speaker 1: but that he also said, in all our affliction I
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  Speaker 1: am overflowing with joy. 2 Corinthians 7.4 That last statement,
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  Speaker 1: in all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy, seems
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  Speaker 1: staggering to me. If it can be present in such
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  Speaker 1: different circumstances, can you help me even begin to imagine
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  Speaker 1: what true joy is?
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  Speaker 2: That very statement from 2 Corinthians 7-4 has arrested my
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  Speaker 2: attention for a little over a year since I taught
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  Speaker 2: 2 Corinthians last year and just wouldn't let me. go
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  Speaker 2: because it seems to demand that we dig into the
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  Speaker 2: nature of joy to figure out what he could possibly
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  Speaker 2: mean by calling his experience joyful in the light of
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  Speaker 2: so many different sufferings. He mentions 26 sufferings, different kinds
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  Speaker 2: of affliction in 2 Corinthians 11. It's not just Paul's
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  Speaker 2: experience of joy. in all those afflictions that drives me,
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  Speaker 2: but many, many different circumstances in the Bible are the
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  Speaker 2: circumstances in which we are told to rejoice. It's just
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  Speaker 2: incredible how many there are. Here's a few. Rejoice in
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  Speaker 2: your future inheritance. I've got texts for each of these,
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  Speaker 2: but I won't bother mentioning them. Rejoice that your names
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  Speaker 2: are written in heaven. Rejoice in the plundering of your
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  Speaker 2: property for love's sake. Rejoice in being poured out for others.
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  Speaker 2: Rejoice in spending and being spent for souls. Rejoice in
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  Speaker 2: your weakness for Christ's sake. Rejoice in being slandered and
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  Speaker 2: persecuted and rejected. Rejoice in being shamed for Christ's name.
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  Speaker 2: Rejoice in contributing to others' needs. Rejoice in the partnership
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  Speaker 2: of other believers. Rejoice in people being converted. Rejoice in
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  Speaker 2: the unity of believers. Rejoice in truth. Rejoice in the
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  Speaker 2: law of God. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the
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  Speaker 2: hope of the glory of God. Rejoice in God, for starters.
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  Speaker 2: The variety of circumstances in which we are told to
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  Speaker 2: rejoice demands this. Joy is not a static emotion, but
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  Speaker 2: one that changes in intensity. That's pretty obvious for everybody,
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  Speaker 2: but also... This is what I'm drawing out now that
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  Speaker 2: feels fresh to me. It also varies in quality. What
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  Speaker 2: do I mean by quality? I mean the nature or
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  Speaker 2: the kind of experience joy is. Not just how intense
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  Speaker 2: it is, but how different it is or how it
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  Speaker 2: can feel so different from one kind of experience to
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  Speaker 2: the next. And yet all of them be called joy.
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  Speaker 2: which I think means a positive emotion that we really
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  Speaker 2: want to have. That would be my kind of bottom
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  Speaker 2: line definition of joy. For example, I think we can distinguish,
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  Speaker 2: this is my best effort so far. I'm pressing into
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  Speaker 2: this in a fresh way recently. I think we can
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  Speaker 2: distinguish six categories of joy, namely by what we're responding to.
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  Speaker 2: Joy differs according to what we're responding to. What are
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  Speaker 2: we responding to? That infuses its quality into our joy.
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  Speaker 2: So I think there is, number one, hope-infused joy. Number two,
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  Speaker 2: thankfulness-infused joy. Number three, trust-infused joy. Then peace-infused joy. Then
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  Speaker 2: physical pleasure-infused joy. joy, and then love-infused joy. So let's
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  Speaker 2: take those one at a time. Hope-infused joy. Different hopes
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  Speaker 2: give rise to joy with different qualities. For example, hope
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  Speaker 2: to be with Christ, hope for relief from pain, hope
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  Speaker 2: to be totally done with sinning, hope for the best
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  Speaker 2: of physical pleasures, hope for friends with shared passions, hope
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  Speaker 2: to build something beautiful, hope to be treated with new
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  Speaker 2: expressions of kindness by an infinitely wise God, and on
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  Speaker 2: and on. The joy of each of those hopes will
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  Speaker 2: feel different from the others, but they are all joy.
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  Speaker 2: or take trust-infused joy. Trust-infused joy is very much like
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  Speaker 2: hope-infused joy with the added aspect of being joy in
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  Speaker 2: a person who is trustworthy to make something good happen.
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  Speaker 2: We might hope for the good thing to happen, but
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  Speaker 2: we trust in a person, in Christ, to secure it,
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  Speaker 2: to make it happen. So There is the added personal
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  Speaker 2: pleasure of confidence, not just in a good thing that's coming,
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  Speaker 2: but also joy in a good, strong, wise person that's
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  Speaker 2: committed to us. The joy of trust, trust-infused joy. And
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  Speaker 2: then thankfulness-infused joy. Thankfulness-infused joy is quite different. It's not
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  Speaker 2: looking forward to a good thing coming. but looking back
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  Speaker 2: on a good thing that already happened that you experienced.
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  Speaker 2: And thankfulness-infused joy will take on as many different qualities
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  Speaker 2: as there are different kinds of things and persons to
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  Speaker 2: be thankful for. For example, you're thankful for a person
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  Speaker 2: who shows up in your life at just the right
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  Speaker 2: moment when you needed him. It's the very person that
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  Speaker 2: you are thankful for. It's person-oriented. Or you're thankful for
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  Speaker 2: some exquisite pleasure that you had watching a sunrise this
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  Speaker 2: morning on the beach. Or it may be some huge
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  Speaker 2: relief from pain that you got a few days ago
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  Speaker 2: after a long illness, and you still feel deeply, happily
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  Speaker 2: thankful for them. All those experiences of joy are different
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  Speaker 2: but they're all joy. Then there's peace-infused joy. A peaceful
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  Speaker 2: conscience is a joyful experience. Oh, my. It's not just
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  Speaker 2: like other joys. It's peace-infused. The absence of conflict is
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  Speaker 2: a happy experience. The presence of relational easiness with another person,
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  Speaker 2: the kind that you enjoy when everybody's on the same page,
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  Speaker 2: And you don't have to impress anybody. Everybody can be
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  Speaker 2: relaxed and accepted and loved. And there's just sweet peace,
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  Speaker 2: like oil running down on the beard of Aaron, like Jesus,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, like the Psalm says. And then there's physical
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  Speaker 2: pleasure-infused joy. Physical pleasure-infused joy is the joy we have
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  Speaker 2: from the countless physical pleasures that God has given us
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  Speaker 2: to enjoy. delicious food, beautiful fall leaves, sexual delights with
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  Speaker 2: a spouse, the fragrance of lilacs in the spring, bacon
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  Speaker 2: cooking in the morning, and the list, of course, could
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  Speaker 2: go on indefinitely. Spiritual, Christ-honoring joy is not identical with
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  Speaker 2: those physical sensations, but the quality of the joy is
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  Speaker 2: is affected, shaped, infused, formed by the pleasures we experience.
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  Speaker 2: And then finally, there's love-infused joy. When the psalmist says,
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  Speaker 2: delight yourself in the Lord, be glad in the Lord,
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  Speaker 2: and when Jesus says, love the Lord your God with
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  Speaker 2: all your heart, that kind of love is not an action.
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  Speaker 2: It's not an action of the body. It's a response
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  Speaker 2: of the heart to the worth or beauty or greatness
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  Speaker 2: of God. or some quality of a person that you
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  Speaker 2: delight in. So it's a kind of joy that is
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  Speaker 2: infused with our love for that person. Now the point
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  Speaker 2: of distinguishing those six kinds of joy, hope infused joy,
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  Speaker 2: thankfulness infused, trust infused, peace infused, physical pleasure infused, love infused,
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  Speaker 2: the point is to help us realize that when Paul
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  Speaker 2: tells us to rejoice always, which he does, and to
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  Speaker 2: rejoice in all kinds of circumstances from the worst to
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  Speaker 2: the easiest, we don't have to imagine that joy is
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  Speaker 2: just one static thing, one static emotion which has to
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  Speaker 2: be duplicated in every situation, squeezed in as though what
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  Speaker 2: you were feeling in bed with your wife is the
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  Speaker 2: same thing you should feel in a futson when your
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  Speaker 2: back is being shredded. Those are not going to be
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  Speaker 2: the same experience. I suspect there are as many different
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  Speaker 2: nuanced qualities of joy as there are kinds of experiences
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  Speaker 2: Christians can have. And common to all of them is
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  Speaker 2: that joy is a positive emotion, an inner experience of
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  Speaker 2: the heart that we want to have. It's not felt
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  Speaker 2: as a duty. It's felt as a desired gift. It is,
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  Speaker 2: as the Bible says, a fruit of the Holy Spirit.
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  Speaker 1: A bouquet of joys. One for each experience.
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you, Pastor John. Joy is not a mask that
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  Speaker 1: we wear to pretend our sorrows don't exist. Joy is
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  Speaker 1: not a shield we put on to hide our pain
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  Speaker 1: from other people, from them seeing it. Joy actually takes
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  Speaker 1: on its various flavors based on the situation. There's a
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  Speaker 1: joy for when we are uncertain, a joy for when
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  Speaker 1: we are in sorrow, a joy for when we delight
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  Speaker 1: in Christ, a hope-infused joy, thankfulness-infused joy, trust-infused joy, peace-infused joy,
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  Speaker 1: physical pleasure-infused joy, love-infused joy. Wow, that's so good. And
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  Speaker 1: common to all of them is the God-centeredness of our joy. Well,
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  Speaker 1: what about a frivolity-infused joy, a slapstick-infused joy, a deep
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  Speaker 1: joy that relishes the most trivial things? Is there such
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  Speaker 1: a thing? as a deep joy that relishes the most
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  Speaker 1: trivial things? No, there's no such thing. Pastor John takes
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  Speaker 1: that up next time, Scrolling the Soul Shallow. I'm Tony Reinke.
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  Speaker 1: We'll see you back here on Thursday.