Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / Is My Joy Commanded or Spontaneous?

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Is My Joy Commanded or Spontaneous? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Welcome back to the podcast. We're on the topic of joy again, namely,
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  is our joy commanded by God as an act of obedience or is our
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  joy in God made authentic by being spontaneous? A common question posed to Christian
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  hedonists and a great question asked by Emily today. Dear Pastor John and TONI
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  thank you so much for this podcast. I have a question that comes from
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  listening to two of your more recent episodes. In them, you stated that
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  joy is not a choice, but a sovereign gift. To quote you,
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  Pastor John, quote, joy is a God given spontaneous experience of the beauty,
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  worth, and greatness of God. End quote. Then in the next
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  episode you discuss that we are commanded to rejoice by Jesus, Peter and Paul,
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  implying that we have some control over our rejoicing. Those are from ABJS
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  nineteen eighty three and APG nineteen eighty four. Pastor John, can you explain
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  how this works? Spontaneous joy in commanded joy? This is such an important
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  issue because not only does it relate to joy, but it relates to all
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  the behaviors and all the decisions and all the emotions of the Christian life.
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  The paradox between an emotion being given by God and being commanded by God runs
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  through the whole Bible, and the reason it does. The reason it runs
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  through the whole Bible is because it's at the heart of living a life that
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  glorifies God by depending on God in doing what he commands us to do.
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  When God commands us to do things, or believe things, or decide things
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  or feel things, He's treated us as genuinely responsible moral persons in his image,
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  unlike all the animals. He's honoring us as a kind of beings in
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  his image who can perceive things and think about things and evaluate things, and
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  then feel and act in accord with how we think and evaluate. But while
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  He created us to be morally responsible persons, he did not create us to
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  be independent from him and his enabling power. Because if we use our own
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  native powers to analyze the world, think it through, make decisions, experience
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  emotions, perform actions without relying on him, we're going to get the glory,
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  not him. He didn't make the world for us to gain independent glory.
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  That's not why he created the world. He created the world for us
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  to live in such a way that he gets the glory, and we get
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  the help. We get the joy, He gets the glory. So here's
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  the principle with a couple of texts, for example, one Peter four eleven.
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  Whoever speaks, let him speak as one who speaks oracles of God.
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  Whoever serves, let him serve as one who serves. Now this is key,
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  as one who serves by the strength that God supplies. So as we
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  serve in obedience to what He commands, we rely upon strength. It's not
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  our own. And then why He gives us the why in order that in
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  everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion
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  forever and ever. That's an absolutely fundamental PRIs principle of living the Christian life.
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  We get the help, he gets the glory. We obey commands by
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  relying utterly on his gift. Another way to say it is that the Christian
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  life is meant to be a life of walking by the Spirit Galatians five sixteen,
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  or being led by the spirit Galatians five eighteen. We fight against sin,
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  Paul says, by putting to death the deeds of the body by the
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  spirit, all those phrases by the spirit by the spirit. By the spirit
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  we do the action. But Father, you give the strength. We do
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  it in reliance upon your power by the spirit. So the whole Christian life,
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  not just the emotion of joy. The whole Christian life is built on
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  this paradox of moral responsibility to do what God tells us to do, and
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  yet to do it in the strength that He supplies. So it's really a
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  gift. It's really a gift from Him, even though our willpower is involved.
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  Probably the most famous words outside the Bible to capture this paradox were spoken
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  by Saint Augustine. He prayed like this in his Confessions book ten. Give
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  what you command, o Lord, and command what you will. Now here's
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  some of the concrete biblical illustrations of what he meant. Let's just take belief
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  in Jesus. Command Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.
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  It's a command gift Philippians one nine. It has been given to you
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  that for Christ's sake, you should believe in Him or take repentance. Command
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  repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Gift. The Lord's servant
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  must not be quarrelsome, but kind, of everyone. God may perhaps give
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  them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth. It's a command, it's
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  a gift. Here's another one. Love. Love is a command, a
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  new commandment. I give to you that you love one another just as I
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  have loved you. But it's a gift Galatians five twenty two. The fruit
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  of the spirit is love. So Emily was exactly right to quote me as
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  saying, on the one hand, joy is a God given spontaneous experience of
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  the beauty, worth, and greatness of God. That's that's true, is
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  a gift. But then saying, on the other hand, we are commanded
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  to rejoice by James and Peter and Jesus and Paul, implying that we have
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  some control over our rejoicing, that is, control over the pursuit of it
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  and obedience to that command. So, for example, we're commanded just taking
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  joy. Returning now to the issue of joy, rejoice in so far as
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  you share Christ's sufferings a command. Rejoice in the Lord always again, I
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  will say, rejoice a command. Delight yourself in the Lord Psalm thirty seven
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  to four. Command. But on the other hand, joy is a gift,
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  the fruit of the spirit is joy Galatians five or Romans fifteen thirteen.
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  May the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.
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  So what do we do to live in this paradox of joy being a gift
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  and a command? To make it as simple as I can, Here's what
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  we do. We look, that's the keyword. We look at the reasons
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  God has given us to rejoice. We look at them in the Bible.
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  And second we pray, look and pray, Look and pray, look and
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  pray. We pray that God would open our eyes to see and feel the
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  value of those reasons the way God intended them to be felt. For example,
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  Paul says, we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
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  So we look at it. We look at the hope, we ponder it,
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  we think about it, and then we pray, Oh God, open
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  my eyes to see the worth of the glory of your hope. Or Jesus
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  said, rejoice, for great is your reward in heaven. So we read
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  about that, and we look, and we ponder, and we think.
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  We meditate on the reward in heaven, and then we pray, Oh God,
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  open my eyes to the worth of the reward. So I feel what
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  I ought to feel when I'm gazing at this amazing reward. Make me happy
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  the way Jesus commanded me to be happy because of how beautiful this reward is,
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  or the Psama says in Someone nineteen one sixty two. I rejoice at
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  your word like one who finds great spoil. So we read the word.
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  We read it, we meditate on it, and we pray and pray and
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  pray God open our eyes that we may behold wonderful things in your word,
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  Someone nineteen eighteen. Now, if this is new to any of our listeners,
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  this kind of paradox between living with commands and gifts like this, and
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  you'd like to probe more deeply, I really simplify things by saying, the
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  key is looking and the key is praying. If you want to read a
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  whole book about it, I wrote a whole book. It's called When I
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  Don't Desire God, and you can read it for free at Desiring good dot
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  org. So as paradoxical as it sounds, this is a glorious way to
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  live. Give what you command, and command what you will. Yeah,
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  look and pray, look and pray. So good When God commands us to
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  do things, or believe things, or decide things, or to feel things.
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  He's treating us as genuinely responsible, moral persons in his image, unlike
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  all the animals. He's honoring us as the kind of beings who can perceive
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  things and think about things and evaluate things, and then feel and act in
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  a chord with how we think and evaluate. That is a beautiful picture of
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  the dignity of our commanded joy. Thank you, Pastor John, and thanks
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  for joining us today. If you have a question, ask Pastor John,
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  email me, ask Pastor John at Desiring God at dot org. And we're
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  back next time on the fourth of July. For us here in the States,
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  we're going to use the holiday to look at the good grace, the
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  common grace of being American. Antoni Rankie, see you Thursday.