“The God Of Our Rejoicing” 
The true source of joy in our lives
Sermon Preached by
The Reverend Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, June 22, 2003
Text: Romans 5:1-8; Proverbs 8:1-4; 32-36
A very wise man once gave me a piece of advice. He said: “Andrew, I spend my time interviewing people for jobs and have learned though interviewing that one question I always ask is the most revealing. I ask every single candidate for a position 'Where do you find your joy in life?' I am sometimes shocked by the things I hear and the answers sometimes reveal far more than I need to know, but it does tell me a great deal about the heart, the character and the affections of those I am questioning.”
Indeed, where your heart is is ultimately where your joy will be found. And where your joy is will reflect where your heart resides. There is an inextricable connection between the heart of affection and joy. This is not, as some would think, a purely philosophical question for those who want to go into the deep psyche of an individual. On the contrary, it's a very practical question. For where your heart and joy is will tell you where your life is lived and how you align your affections - how you align the desires that you have and the life that you want to ultimately lead. I think most of us (unless we have something wrong with us) want to find out where our joy is and to maximize it and place our hearts in alignment with it.
Now, it is fair enough to say, however, that if you were to ask anyone - yourself included - what constitutes joy, the definition might change throughout the course of life. If you were to ask a teenager what would constitute joy, for some, it might be to get free tickets to a Justin Timberlake or a Christina Aguilera concert. If you were to ask a doctor what constitutes joy in his or her life, it would seem to be healing a patient. If you were to ask parents where their joy resides they would tell you in a well-constructed and well-rounded child who would do them proud. If you were to ask me today what brings me joy I would tell you that finally I see a Manchester United player on the front page of the Globe and Mail. It's about time Canada woke up to how important these people are. (And its an even greater joy that Manchester United had the wisdom to get rid of him, but that's another story.)
I asked a senior citizen once not long ago what constituted joy in his life. He told me that being able to get out of bed and reaching his cane now defines joy for him..
Our sense of joy does, in fact, change. It ebbs and flows as our life progresses and changes. There are these joys that are transient - they pass away and come back again - but so much of the joy in our life is governed and instructed by the spirit of the age we live in. We often define what we constitute joy by what is known as the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times, the spirit of the age. We align our affections in keeping with those that society thinks are wonderful.
I can't help but think of that when we talk about a particular generation of people. I'm thinking especially about the generation that have been known euphemistically as the “cutting edgers” - those people between ages of 25 and 49. In an open letter to the Globe and Mail titled: “God is dead, whatever,” a writer goes into the depths of the culture and society and suggest that today's society defines joy and affection and important things differently perhaps than in other generations. (I must admit I find myself just barely hanging on the edge of this particular age group). This is what the survey had to say about that generation:
Not only are cutting-edgers disengaged from societal institutions, they are disengaged from traditional, ethical and religious values. For example, many have no personal compunction over the use of technology for genetic engineering or reinventing the human body. Rather than strange, Michael Jackson for them is a harbinger of things to come. Laser surgery, Botox, chip implantation, pills, drugs, anything to change our personal identity. Don't like your age - change it. Don't like your race - change it. Tired of the way that your face looks? Put on makeup, but do more, have surgery - change it. Forgotten is that part of the Alcoholics Anonymous prayer that says: 'To accep the things I cannot change.' What is remembered is to change only the things I can. That is why 21st century cutting-edgers (pun intended) know few limits when it comes to themselves. Hell for such people is not eternal damnation in the next life, but boredom in this one.
What this article is suggesting is that we are always wanting to change ourselves. And, of course, when we're trying to change ourselves, our sense of joy is predicated on the extent to which we are able to make those changes. We're not satisfied with the way that things are or the way that we are - we want to change everything - and we want to make sure that in changing everything we can form everything to the way that we want it to be.
In such a world there is often little or no room for faith. Little or no room for religion or for values. It is only what we want to change that matters. That is why our text from the Book of Romans is so powerful. It talks about a joy that transcends the little joys in life. It talks about the joy that comes from living in a right relationship with God. Paul says: “We rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” You see, the apostle Paul believed that what constitutes real and lasting, permanent joy is knowing that we are living in that right relationship with God through the gift of Jesus Christ.
For him this was the highest joy. This was the joy that transcends the vicissitudes of time or culture. This is the joy that is somehow even above our own whims or fancies at any given moment in life. This is the joy that really lasts. The joy of the affection of the heart of living in a right relationship with God. If you look at the Book of Romans, particularly passages from Chapter Five, you'll see that Paul sees that at the cornerstone of all this is faith - that real joy comes from faith. He understands first of all that real joy is not something that is natural. It's not something that we must take for granted. It is something that is given to us by a loving and a gracious God.
Paul understands that it is not something that we can take for granted because we live in a fallen world. We live in a world that is often impermanent. We live in a world that vacillates and changes. We live in a world that is often cruel, angry and sinful. And the apostle Paul understands that one doesn't just say: “Oh, I'm going to be happy and find joy.” On the contrary, we need to understand that real and lasting joy requires us to search our hearts and find the things that are really important.
As you know, one of my favourite writers is Alexander Solzhenitsyn. In “The Prison Chronicles,” he says: [paraphrase]
We mustn't try to say there is no joy in this life and not seek it. Nor can we say that joy is a permanent thing that we are always going to find. Joy really is in having a true assessment of what life really is about. For example: If my back is not broken and I can get up in the morning is that not joy? If I have sight from both my eyes, if I can use both my hands, if I can hear with both ears, why should I envy anyone when I have such things? No, what is important is that I put a piece of my heart aside so that I might know what is truly important, namely the love and the affection of the people who are dear in my life.
Solzhenitsyn didn't look for joy out there. He understood that joy is based on the really important things. It is based on relationships. It is based on thanking God for the things that we have been given each and every day. But we have a society that's rolling headlong in, wanting joy immediately on the basis of material possessions and creature comforts.
Very often, my friends, as a result of that we turn to many different places to find that joy apart from God. We try to find it in society, that someone might give us something or that we might buy something and have that joy.
Not long ago I went into a store and there was a sign that said: “Sit on this and it will change your life.” Well, I wasn't having a very good day so I would have sat on almost anything at that point! I went over and sat on this thing. It was a vibrating car seat. Have you seen these? You press a button and it vibrates under you - it's gorgeous - for about 30 seconds you could forget almost anything with one of these. In fact, Marial almost had to pry me away, my pleasure was becoming so embarrassing. But after two or three minutes my right leg went numb and the bottom of my spine started to go numb and I could barely get up. I thought: “My goodness, if this is what a changed life is like, I think I'll just stay as I was, thank you very much.”
There is always somebody coming along pandering to this sort of facile joy that is out there - if I have this, if I buy that, if I consume that, if I'm given that I will be joyful. Similarly, we also seem to think at times that the government can step in and make us joyful. That it can somehow make everything right and create a nice, perfect, neat world where everything is orderly and good.
There is a book by Philip Yancey titled “What's So Amazing About Grace?” In it he talks openly about the fact that he doesn't think that government can create a Utopia or give us the joy that we're looking for. This is one of the best quotes I've ever read:
A government can shut down stores and theatres on Sunday, the law, but it cannot compel people to worship. It can arrest and punish KKK murderers but cannot cure their hatred, much less teach them to love. It can pass laws making divorce more difficult, but it cannot force husbands to love their wives and wives their husbands. It can give subsidies to the poor, but cannot force the rich to show them compassion and justice. It can ban adultery, but not lust, theft, but not covetousness. Cheating, but not pride. It can encourage virtue, but not holiness.
How right Yancey is. If we look to external powers or forces to create the joy that we want in this life we'll often be let down, for they can only go so far. Whether it is the advice of wonderful shamans or whether it is the guidance that we get from even the most wise among us. Even if all laws and all things align to what we think is right and joyful and proper, does that mean that we'll have what Paul believed was true joy - the joy of the Lord? No. For Paul, true joy comes through faith.
He understood that in the turbulent times in which he lived, torn between the legalism of Pharisees and the oppression of Romans, between the philosophical thinking of the Greeks and in fact in many ways the ideas of the Persians, he was a Jew in the middle of it all, and could still only find his joy in God. In his inability to please this God, in his sense of incompleteness as a human being to fulfill all that God ordained, he knew that he could rest on only one thing, and that was the mercy and the love and the grace of Jesus Christ. His true sense, his overwhelming sense of joy was based on that gift and that gift alone.
He knew in his heart what was beautifully read from Proverbs for us this morning, (and I quote from the King James version because it is so poetic): “Blessed are they who follow in my ways, who watch and wait outside my door, says the Lord.” Paul knew that even if he did try to the very best of his ability to fulfill even that, he still needed God's help and God's help came in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ was his joy.
So what really then does give me this day, real joy? What can I honestly say to you if you were to ask me in an interview: “Andrew, tell me, where is your joy?” I would tell you two things. The first thing I would tell you is something I encountered just a couple of weeks ago when I was invited to go to a hospice shelter here in Toronto. It was a shelter for the homeless, but it was a place where they received palliative care. It provides respite for those who have nowhere to stay. It is there to help those who are dying but have no bed on which to die. As I went in and met with those who were providing the leadership to these people, you know what really did my heart good? To see on the faces of those who were helping them, the excitement, that overwhelming sense of joy when they could say that they had helped somebody die with dignity and peace. That they had been able to buy a new kettle to make them tea, that they had been able to paint the ceiling to make it look more beautiful, or have more comfortable beds on which these people could rest. When they were giving their lives and their time they were doing it not for themselves, they were doing it for someone else. Their joy was in seeing others' lives changed because of the compassion and the love that they were offering.
My second source of joy goes one step beyond that. It's when I see people, just as they did in the time of Jesus, grabbing His gown and holding onto it, coming to His feet and washing them, offering all that they have because they see in Him the one thing that really can change them, the one thing that can really give them life, the one thing that can really give them peace, the one thing that can really give them joy. For in Him they understand that they can enjoy the blessings of God.
My friends, let us never, ever lose sight of this truth. Let us never lose sight of this powerful and forgiving and loving Christ. My heart is joyful when people look to Him and can smile and say: “This is the God of my rejoicing in whom I believe.” Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.