Joy is a beautiful word. When God blesses parents with a beautiful baby girl, a name that they often choose for her is joy. Altogether, there’s something beautiful about joy. However, to experience its beauty in our lives, we need to understand the real nature of joy. And to understand that we have to know something about human personality.
The Bible reveals that the total human personality is made-up of three distinct areas, spirit, soul, and body.
1 Thessalonians 5:23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
When Paul talks about our entire personality, he specifies three distinct areas: the spirit, the soul and the body.
There is a different type of satisfaction for each area of our personality. And if we understand this, we can begin to understand the true nature of joy.
For the body, the type of satisfaction that we look for is pleasure.
In the soul, the type of satisfaction that we look for is happiness.
But in the spirit, the type of satisfaction which we look for is joy.
So, pleasure is in the body, happiness is in the soul, and joy is in the spirit.
It’s important to distinguish between happiness and joy.
What then is the difference between happiness and joy? Well, let me give you a very simple, everyday example of happiness.
A young man is in his new sports car, his girlfriend is beside him, it’s a beautiful spring day, he’s driving down a beautiful highway, everything’s going right, the birds are singing, he’s got money in his pocket, his girlfriend is holding his hand, he’s very happy.
But now let’s change the scene. Let’s look at the same young man. His beautiful sports car has broken down. His girlfriend has abandoned him. It’s a cold winter day. It’s raining and he has no money. Do you think he’s happy now? Definitely not.
His happiness has disappeared. Why? Because happiness depends on circumstances.
joy does not depend on circumstances. because joy depends on something that never changes with situations or circumstances or finances or the weather.
There’s only one source of joy and that is God Himself. And because God never changes, joy never needs to change either.
Now, if we’re living only in the realm of the body and the soul, we can know pleasure and we can know happiness, but we cannot know joy.
For joy has only one source, and that’s God. Joy comes from a direct, personal, continuing relationship with God. Without that relationship it is impossible to know true joy.
Listen to what David says in Psalm 43, verse 4. The background to this Psalm is that David is oppressed, his enemies are after him, he’s under the pressure of circumstances, things are not going well, the future is very uncertain.
So, he decides, I will go to the altar of my God, to God my exceeding joy, and upon the harp shall I praise thee, O God, my God.
David says to himself in effect, what’s the way out of all these troubles? Where’s the answer?
Then he says, there’s one place I must go, it’s the altar of God. When I get to the altar I can begin to worship and praise God.
My contact with God will be renewed and my joy will be restored. And notice what David says about God. He says, God, my exceeding joy.
So, David’s joy was not in any situation or circumstance or experience or achievement or blessing but his joy was in his God and called God, my exceeding joy.
Do you have that kind of relationship with God?
Amid all trouble and pressure, there is a way for you to receive joy. You must make sure the channel between you and God is clear.
And even if you’re not happy, and you’re not experiencing pleasure, and everything around you is dark and insecure, you still have joy.
You have joy in your spirit, because your spirit is in direct contact with God’s Spirit, the source of joy. And that joy will flow into your soul.
This is Habakkuk’s testimony in chapter 3, verses 17 and 18. Though the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olives should fail, and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exult, or rejoice, or have joy in the Lord. I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.
Habakkuk is confronted with a situation where everything material that he could rely on has been cut off.
The fig tree doesn’t blossom. There’s no fruit on the vines. There are no olives. The fields produce no food. The flock isn’t there and the cattle are gone.
So, for a man who made his living by farming, not much was left. What did Habakkuk do? Did he sit down and say, well, everything’s over, God’s forgotten me, I might just as well give up?
What would you have done in a similar situation?
Habakkuk, like David, made a decision. David said, I will go to the altar of God. Habakkuk said, yet I will exult in the Lord.
I want you to see that joy does not center in emotions, it is released through the will. It’s a decision.
Everything can go wrong, but you can still tune into the Lord, and have joy because the Lord is your joy, and those situations and circumstances may change, but the Lord doesn’t.
That’s how it’s possible for a believer to have continuing uninterrupted joy, not in his body, not in his soul, but in his spirit.
In Romans chapter 5, Paul states an interesting progression of joy. In verse 2, he says, we rejoice, in hope of the glory of God.
The first source of our joy is in the hope of the glory of God. The next statement in verse 3 does not seem reasonable. He says, we also exalt in our tribulations, in our troubles. We rejoice in them.
How could that be? In the verses that follow, Paul explains it, because tribulation produces certain results in our character which cannot be produced in any other way.
And so even though we don’t like the tribulation, we joy in it, we exult in it, because we know what it’s doing to our character.
the third stage of the progression is in verse 11, where Paul says this, but we also exalt in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
The ultimate climax of exaltation, of joy, is in God Himself. And that can never be taken away from you.
The true mark of spiritual maturity is to find your joy in God Himself, Not in an experience or a blessing or a provision, but in God Himself.
Acts 13:52. It says there about the disciples in the city of Antioch in Pisidia, the disciples were continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.
If you look at the background, those disciples were new converts, they were under great pressure, there was persecution in the city.
The men who had led them to the Lord, Paul and Barnabas, had to move on, so they were left on their own under persecution. What was their response?
Was it to give up and be despondent and say, well, God has failed us? No, their response was amazing. The disciples were continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.
If you can be filled with the Holy Spirit, you can be filled with joy.
It’s impossible to be filled with joy without the Holy Spirit. And it’s impossible to be filled with the Holy Spirit without joy.