Transcript

11: Joy · Finding God at Work

0:06
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, I'm Chris.
0:07
This is Finding God at Work.
0:14
In our current series, Fruitful Work, we're asking
0:16
the question, what kind of fruit am I
0:18
bearing at work?
0:20
Because if we're honest, we don't always bear
0:21
the kind of fruit we wish we would.
0:23
But by God's grace, by the power of
0:25
the Holy Spirit, we can learn to bear
0:27
fruit that is good.
0:28
And today, as we work through the fruit
0:30
of the Spirit, we get to Joy.
0:37
Now, just like self-control is my least
0:39
favorite part of the fruit of the Spirit,
0:41
because it's like, er, gotta practice self-control,
0:44
Joy is my favorite part of the fruit
0:45
of the Spirit because it's, ah, get to
0:47
practice Joy.
0:48
This is the fun one.
0:49
This is the one that we want to
0:50
get into.
0:51
But it raises the question, what is Joy?
0:54
What is happiness?
0:55
What is well-being?
0:57
How are these things all connected?
0:59
What does it really mean?
1:00
Is it an emotion?
1:01
Is it a virtue?
1:02
Is it something else?
1:04
People have been asking this question for a
1:06
long time.
1:07
So if you rewind way back to the
1:08
400s BC, you've got the Greek playwright Euripides.
1:11
He wrote this play called Medea.
1:12
Line from that.
1:13
For among mortals, happy man is none.
1:16
For among mortals, happy man is none.
1:18
Why is nobody happy?
1:19
Well, he goes on and he talks about
1:21
the vicissitudes of fate, how fate might smile
1:23
on you, fate could frown on you, you
1:25
don't know what's going to happen.
1:26
So until someone has died, you can't really
1:28
say whether they're happy or not.
1:30
You have to look at their whole life
1:31
post-mortem, and then you can say, OK,
1:33
yeah, they were happy, things turned out all
1:34
right.
1:35
So there's some things that you can do
1:36
to make your life better, but ultimately a
1:38
lot's up to fate.
1:40
So that kind of creates the sense of
1:41
helplessness, doesn't it?
1:42
Like, how do we know how to pursue
1:44
happiness if, you know, bad things are going
1:46
to happen to us and that's not our
1:48
fault and then you're just not happy and
1:50
we don't even know till we're dead?
1:52
There's a solution to this proposed by the
1:54
Stoic philosophers.
1:54
So fast forward, we've talked about the Stoics,
1:58
Seneca was contemporaneous with the Apostle Paul writing
2:00
in the first century, and Seneca addresses this
2:03
exact problem with joy, how if it depends
2:05
on our circumstances, things go haywire.
2:08
So this is from his letters to Lucilius,
2:10
number 32.
2:11
He writes, do you ask what is the
2:13
foundation of a sound mind?
2:14
It is not to find joy in useless
2:16
things.
2:17
We have reached the heights if we know
2:18
what it is we find joy in and
2:21
if we have not placed our happiness in
2:23
the control of externals.
2:26
So this solution makes a lot of sense.
2:28
It's saying there's going to be ups in
2:29
life.
2:29
There's going to be downs in life.
2:31
But what you want is to not place
2:32
your joy in those varying circumstances.
2:35
Instead, find a way to have joy regardless
2:37
of circumstance.
2:40
Now, I just want to point out that
2:41
is a Stoic conception of joy.
2:43
It is not a specifically Christian conception of
2:46
joy.
2:46
And if you've been around the block a
2:48
few times with Christianity, you may have heard
2:49
sermons about joy that go something like this.
2:52
Happiness is all about your circumstances.
2:54
It's your feelings.
2:54
It's what goes up and what goes down.
2:56
But joy is that thing that you find
2:58
that's constant, regardless of your circumstance.
3:01
Now, there is some truth to that, and
3:03
we'll impact that more.
3:04
But I just want to point out if
3:05
that's all that you're saying about joy, that
3:07
it's the thing that you find that you
3:09
maintain by thinking the right way with regardless
3:11
of circumstance, you have arrived at a Stoic
3:14
conception of joy, not a specifically Christian conception
3:16
of joy.
3:17
And this fits other things that we've seen,
3:20
like in Paul's letter to the Galatians, that
3:21
there are some things where the Stoics are
3:23
maybe addressing a similar problem or casting a
3:26
similar diagnosis to what Paul will do as
3:29
a Christian apostle.
3:30
But then the prescription is different.
3:33
So, for example, both Paul and the Stoics
3:34
are concerned about a life dedicated just to
3:37
superficial bodily pleasures, similar diagnosis.
3:40
They both criticize what's called the passions.
3:42
But Paul's solution is not just to think
3:45
the right thing, like the Stoics suggest.
3:47
It's not just to find your own inner
3:49
power over those passions, like the Stoics suggest.
3:52
Rather, Paul says those who belong to Christ
3:55
Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions
3:58
and desires.
3:59
For Paul, it's our union with Christ and
4:02
the power of the Holy Spirit that makes
4:03
the difference in our character over time.
4:06
So even if the diagnosis is similar, the
4:08
prescription is different.
4:10
Well, this is exactly the same for joy.
4:13
So shifting from Paul to the Gospel of
4:15
John, we see Jesus' own teaching about joy.
4:18
This is in that beautiful discourse where he
4:20
talks about being the true vine and his
4:23
disciples being the branches.
4:24
He also talks about love and joy.
4:27
So this is chapter 15, verses 10 through
4:29
11.
4:46
Jesus is using the language of union, of
4:49
mutual indwelling.
4:50
If you keep my commandments, you will abide
4:52
in my love.
4:54
We rest in Jesus' love.
4:56
We spend time there.
4:58
We inhabit that love as a reality.
5:02
And that's the reality that Jesus himself has
5:04
in relationship to his father.
5:06
He says, just as I have kept my
5:08
father's commandments and abide in his love.
5:10
So Jesus is in the father and we
5:14
are in Jesus.
5:15
And that means we experience his love deep
5:17
in our being.
5:19
And then these things I have spoken to
5:21
you that my joy may be in you
5:23
and that your joy may be full.
5:26
Joy is not just about an intellectual experience.
5:28
It's not just something where we think the
5:31
right thing.
5:31
It's an indwelling of the presence of Jesus
5:34
in our very being.
5:36
His joy is in us so that our
5:39
joy is full.
5:41
The same joy that characterized his life can
5:43
characterize our life.
5:46
So that's the specifically Christian perspective on joy.
5:50
But you'll notice that didn't really answer the
5:52
question, what is joy?
5:55
And so to answer the question, what is
5:56
joy?
5:57
I want to first talk about three things
5:58
that joy is not.
6:00
And these are things that we can get
6:01
confused by either as Christians or even more
6:04
broadly in culture, people getting confused about what
6:06
is happiness, what is joy, what is well
6:08
-being.
6:09
So there's three things, pleasure, positivity and a
6:15
powerful idea.
6:16
I'm doing I'm doing that alliteration thing that
6:18
preachers sometimes do.
6:19
And we just got a jam on the
6:20
P's here and there's actually F's too.
6:22
There's P's and F's, pay attention to them.
6:24
OK, so pleasure.
6:26
This is a conception of joy as fun,
6:28
fun joy.
6:29
And this would be the kind of thing
6:31
that's based on circumstance.
6:32
So you get a raise, you feel happy,
6:35
then you adjust to it and you're not
6:36
really that happy anymore a year later.
6:38
You get to lick an ice cream cone,
6:40
your taste buds give you a sense of
6:41
pleasure, but then the ice cream cone is
6:43
gone and you don't have that pleasure anymore.
6:45
This is common sense.
6:46
It makes sense that this would not be
6:48
the kind of joy that Jesus is talking
6:50
about.
6:50
This is not the kind of joy that
6:51
Paul is talking about in the fruit of
6:53
the spirit.
6:54
It has to go deeper somehow than mere
6:56
pleasure, than mere sense experience.
6:59
And we know that from other passages in
7:01
scripture too that talk about suffering.
7:03
So, for example, in the opening of the
7:04
letter of James, he says, count it all
7:07
joy, brothers and sisters, whenever you experience trials
7:10
of various kinds.
7:11
Well, facing trials, facing pain, facing difficulty, facing
7:14
suffering can somehow be something that we count
7:17
as joy.
7:18
Joy can't just be the same as pleasure.
7:19
It's got to be something else.
7:21
OK, so pleasure, fun joy, not enough.
7:25
Now, what about positivity?
7:27
There are certain Christian subcultures where this is
7:29
more so the thing, where there's no room
7:31
for dark emotions.
7:33
There's no room for sadness.
7:35
There's no room for depression.
7:37
There's often dishonesty about the complexity of mental
7:39
health among disciples of Jesus.
7:42
And when you go to a Christian community
7:43
like this, it's like you have to put
7:45
on this plastic mask of happiness, because if
7:48
you show up looking sad, people assume there's
7:49
something wrong with you.
7:51
People assume there's something wrong with your faith.
7:53
But that is a distorted view of the
7:56
New Testament.
7:56
That is a distorted view of our life
7:58
and the emotions as disciples of Jesus.
8:00
When you read the scriptures, you find that
8:02
there's room for dark emotions and bright emotions.
8:05
So, for example, Romans chapter 12, verse 15,
8:08
Paul writes, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep
8:11
with those who weep.
8:13
So Paul's talking about joy, but then he's
8:14
also talking about sorrow.
8:16
And he's saying they somehow go together, they're
8:17
somehow compatible.
8:18
That's a Christian vision of the emotional life.
8:21
There's room for the depth of our emotions.
8:24
So a positivity view of joy is fake
8:26
joy.
8:27
It's that plastic mask you have to wear
8:28
to be accepted in certain unhealthy communities.
8:32
But obviously, that's not the joy we're getting
8:33
at.
8:34
OK, then third thing, joy is a powerful
8:36
idea.
8:37
This is a little bit more like what
8:39
I was talking about when maybe we've arrived
8:41
at a stoic idea, but not a Christian
8:42
idea.
8:44
Sometimes you'll hear people maybe responding to the
8:46
pleasure view of joy or even the positivity
8:48
view of joy, say something like joy has
8:50
nothing to do with your feelings or joy
8:52
has nothing to do with your emotions.
8:54
Joy isn't about the little ups and downs
8:56
of life and whether you feel good or
8:58
bad about those, it's about how you know
9:00
that God is going to come through for
9:01
you.
9:03
The problem with this is it puts joy
9:05
strictly in the intellectual experience category.
9:08
Joy is about a fact that we know
9:10
and somehow is cut off from our emotional
9:12
experience, you know, and then emotionally, it's something
9:16
like, oh, I feel terrible, but I guess
9:18
I know in my head that God loves
9:19
me.
9:20
And that's just that's just not helpful.
9:22
Now, if you really do feel terrible and
9:24
you're having a hard time experiencing the love
9:26
of God in your emotional life, hanging on
9:29
to the things that you do know doctionally,
9:31
of course, that's helpful.
9:32
That's a good thing to do.
9:33
But that's not the fullness of what we're
9:35
promised in Scripture in our experience of joy.
9:38
Joy is more than that.
9:40
Joy is not just a powerful idea.
9:43
We could call that view of joy a
9:45
flat joy.
9:46
It's not three dimensional.
9:48
It's just the idea.
9:49
It's not the experience.
9:51
Okay, so pleasure, fun joy, not enough positivity,
9:56
fake joy, not enough powerful idea, flat joy,
10:01
not enough.
10:02
So what is enough?
10:03
What really helps us experience joy like Jesus
10:07
experienced joy?
10:09
Well, when I ask a question like this,
10:11
someone who I find very helpful, as you
10:12
know, if you've been listening to this podcast,
10:14
or if you know me, is philosopher Dallas
10:16
Willard.
10:16
He's particularly good with definitions.
10:18
And so I've always found his definition of
10:20
joy to be helpful.
10:22
This comes from his book, The Great Omission.
10:25
He's writing about various parts of the fruit
10:27
of the spirit and other Christian virtues.
10:30
And he says, joy is not pleasure, a
10:32
mere sensation, but a pervasive and constant sense
10:36
of well-being, pervasive and constant sense of
10:42
well-being.
10:43
And in light of the other things we've
10:45
just looked at, I would tag on the
10:46
phrase, compatible with suffering.
10:49
So joy is a pervasive and constant sense
10:52
of well-being that's compatible with suffering.
10:57
We experience pain, we experience dark emotions, and
11:01
we also experience a pervasive and constant sense
11:04
of well-being.
11:06
It is connected to our ideas.
11:08
It is connected to our doctrine of the
11:10
faithfulness of God, but it's three dimensional.
11:12
It's not that flat view that has nothing
11:14
to do with our emotions.
11:15
It's a three dimensional experience that impacts, yes,
11:19
our emotions among other things.
11:22
How does it impact our emotions?
11:23
Let me read just a little bit more
11:24
from Dallas.
11:25
This gets a little philosophical, but I think
11:27
it's helpful.
11:28
The great central terms of life in Christ
11:30
are faith, hope, love, and peace.
11:33
These are not just feelings in substance, they
11:36
are not feelings.
11:37
They are conditions involving every part of an
11:40
individual's life, including the body and the social
11:43
context.
11:44
They serve to equip us for the engagements
11:46
of life.
11:47
They do, however, have feelings that accompany them,
11:49
and these positive feelings abundantly characterize those living
11:53
in the presence of God.
11:56
So again, little philosophical.
11:57
Dallas is like, it's not just a feeling,
11:59
it's more than an emotion, but there are
12:00
positive feelings that go with it, and I
12:03
think that's helpful.
12:03
Joy is not just a feeling, just like
12:05
it's not just an idea.
12:06
It's a condition of life, but it is
12:09
a three dimensional condition of life, one that
12:11
we enter deeply into over time in our
12:14
discipleship to Jesus, one that remaps our emotional
12:18
landscape over time, including dark emotions and bright
12:21
emotions, and deepening our conviction of God's care
12:24
and His love for us.
12:26
It's that steady, peaceful conviction of God's presence
12:30
in the midst of life's up and downs
12:32
that gives us joy.
12:35
So how do we practice joy?
12:38
How do we deepen that experience of joy
12:40
if it's meant to deepen over time?
12:42
Well, you may remember back on the self
12:44
-control episode, I talked about how the practice
12:46
of silence can help in growing in self
12:48
-control in our words, what we say, because
12:51
we've got that sequence of will, habit, body.
12:55
And so we kind of got to work
12:56
at that habit step if we want to
12:57
make a change in our lives.
12:59
Well, that can apply for more fun things
13:01
too.
13:01
So joy is more than fun, but it
13:03
is fun to practice joy.
13:04
And so, what would it look like to
13:06
practice the habit of joy?
13:08
If will, it's like, I want to be
13:10
joyful, I'm choosing to be joyful, habit, how
13:12
do I develop a habit of joy so
13:13
that body, then I experience that confident peace
13:16
in God's presence in the midst of life's
13:18
ups and downs in my body, and it
13:20
affects my heart rate, it affects how I
13:21
breathe, it affects how I'm able to pay
13:23
attention to other people.
13:25
Well, one habit that's really powerful for this
13:28
is the habit of thanksgiving, giving thanks.
13:31
There's tons of social science research on this
13:33
even that we don't have time to get
13:34
into, but it shows that when people make
13:36
a habit of giving thanks, just reflecting of
13:39
what they're thankful on in their day to
13:40
day life, it increases their emotional sense of
13:44
wellbeing really dramatically.
13:46
And so this is something that you can
13:47
do to practice joy at the end of
13:50
your work day, for example, while you're driving
13:52
home or while you're wrapping up at your
13:54
work from home desk, think, what am I
13:57
thankful for from today?
13:59
What conversations am I thankful for?
14:01
What accomplishments am I thankful for?
14:03
What coworkers and friends am I thankful for?
14:07
How did God show up in my work
14:10
day to day?
14:12
That's what gratitude really is.
14:13
It's just paying attention to the presence of
14:15
God in the details of our everyday life.
14:17
So those can be big things.
14:18
Those can be small things, practicing gratitude.
14:21
That's the way that we grow in joy.
14:24
And ultimately this takes in all of the
14:27
depth of our experience as Christians.
14:29
When we're sowing in tears, we have confidence
14:33
that we will reap with joy.
14:35
That's joy.
14:36
That's a pervasive and constant sense of wellbeing.
14:39
When we walk through the valley of the
14:40
shadow of death, I am not afraid for
14:44
you are with me.
14:45
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
14:49
That's joy.
14:50
That's a pervasive and constant sense of wellbeing.
14:53
That's what Jesus can give us.
14:58
Jesus, let your joy be in us.
15:02
And let it be full.
15:04
Do your work in us as we do
15:06
our work with you.
15:08
Amen.
15:12
Thanks for listening.
15:14
Finding God at Work is a production of
15:16
Mission Central, a ministry based in Aurora, Illinois,
15:19
dedicated to forming Christians for mission in everyday
15:21
life.
15:22
You can subscribe to the podcast wherever you
15:24
listen to this episode to get 10 minutes
15:26
of teaching on faith and work every Tuesday
15:28
and Thursday.
15:29
To get resources to go deeper with each
15:31
podcast series, read our blog, and get info
15:34
about upcoming courses on faith in the workplace,
15:36
go to our website, missioncentral.church. Also, we
15:40
don't always mention this because we want to
15:42
make our resources available without any sense of
15:44
obligation.
15:45
But if Finding God at Work has helped
15:47
you and you want to support our ministry,
15:49
you can give a tax-deductible gift at
15:51
missioncentral.church slash give.