The Virtue of Joy

Introduction

In 2019, I am calling for us at Iron City Baptist Church to launch an unapologetic, unwavering, relentless pursuit of joy. That is, I am calling for us to reject the reflexes that we have to numb ourselves to reality with alcohol, drugs, television, relationships, and approval and instead pursue something far beyond being numb and deadened to what’s around us. I’m calling for us to aggressively go after real, abiding joy.

For some of us, we have been conditioned in a particular way to hear that and then wonder if that is a selfish pursuit. You might find yourself asking: Isn’t it selfish of me to pursue my having joy? Am I not to pursue something more noble, more self-effacing, more costly than joy? Should we not be focused on God’s pleasure rather than our own? Should we not be focused on holiness rather than happiness? But, what we began to see last week is that there is not a choice to be made between pleasing God and pursuing joy, prioritizing holiness and possessing happiness. No! It’s a both/and. The Christian life affords us both the pleasure of God and durable joy, Spirit-wrought holiness and authentic happiness. In fact, even beyond simply being a both/and, it’s an interwoven, unbreakable relationship. God takes pleasure in us when we find our pleasure in him. God is filled with joy from us when find our full joy in him. There is not real holiness without happiness because holiness is finding happiness in God. And so, this morning, I want us to press into this realization deeper and unpack even more this unbreakable relationship between our pleasure and God’s pleasure.

God’s Word

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Joy is Virtuous

“These things I have spoken to you....that your joy may be full.” Any question that we had about the virtue of a pursuit of joy is blown out of the water by what Jesus says in verse 11. He says that he’s saying these things to his disciples SO THAT their ‘joy might be full.’ In fact, in , John records Jesus’ High Priestly prayer, and in that prayer Jesus reveals to his Father in heaven that his motive for praying for his disciples is ‘that they might have joy fulfilled in themselves.’ This made such an impact on John that when he wrote his first letter to the churches he began it by saying that his reason for writing that letter was ‘so that our joy may be complete’ and he closed his second letter to the churches by saying, ‘I hope to come to you and talk face to face so that our joy may be complete.’ So, we can dismiss outright any notion that it is un-virtuous or improper for us to pursue our joy.

Misaimed Joy

“By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” The problem isn’t our pursuit of joy; rather, our problem is that we take the good and proper pursuit of joy and we misaim it. We pursue the right ends but by the wrong means. We pursue innately and instinctively our joy, but we pursue it by achieving and buying and winning. We aim to find joy by what others think of us and how high we’re able to raise our standing in the world and on how much convenience and leisure we can obtain. And, when that doesn’t work we end the pursuit of joy and settle for simply numbing ourselves. “If I can’t feel happy, I’ll settle for feeling nothing at all.” And so, we find ourselves numbing our brains with hours of television and web-surfing, and numbing our bodies with drugs and alcohol, and numbing our rejection with pornography and adultery. But, the issue is not our pursuit of joy. That’s the right ends. The issue is that we aren’t taking our pursuit of joy seriously enough, and we’ve attempted to find shortcuts found in the world that have short-circuited our whole system.

The Ends of Abiding

That’s what’s at issue in our passage. We see that there is one mean to two different ends/gains. Jesus tells us there are two ends, two gains at which all that he’s saying is aimed. We see the first in verse 8 when he says, “By this my Father is glorified.” That is, abiding in Christ and bearing the fruit of Christ and proving yourself as a disciple of Christ brings pleasure and glory to God the Father. We see the second in verse 11 when he says, “These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” That is, abiding in Christ and bearing the fruit of Christ and keeping the commandments of Christ is aimed not only at the Father’s pleasure and joy but also at your own pleasure and joy. And here, Jesus is telling us how that takes place when we stop looking for shortcuts and stop short-circuiting our own joy. He’s telling us how we can live for both the Father’s pleasure and our own.

The True Vine

“I am the true vine” And to that end, Jesus says, “I am the true vine.” This is the final of seven ‘I am’ statements in the gospel of John, and in each of those statements, Jesus is harkening us back to when God came to Moses, and said his name was: “I Am Who I Am.” So, here we are not merely reading a description of who Jesus is, but even more than that, we are reading a declaration by Jesus of his identity as God. As common as vineyards were in Jesus’ day, this is a metaphor of mere chance. In , God calls Israel his vineyard planted in good soil that had failed to produce good fruit, and in the Psalmist prays for God to restore the vine He had cut down by the Son of Man. So, in the Old Covenant, the vine of God is Israel who was always producing bad fruit, ‘wild grapes’ as they’re called in Isaiah. But, here is Jesus, and He is the fulfillment of Israel. He is the new and greater Israel, and the ‘true’ Vine who is obedient where Israel was disobedient, faithful where Israel was unfaithful, and spreading the glory of God to all nations where Israel was adopting the false gods of the others nations herself. Jesus is the true Vine, and He will produce the fruit that Israel never could, and He will fulfill Israel’s role in the Kingdom of God and replace them as a righteous Vine.

“I am the vine; you are the branches.” In verse 5, Jesus clarifies our role as the church. He tells us that He is the vine, and we are the branches of that vine. That is, everyone who comes to Christ is grafted onto him as the Vine so that they might produce his fruit. After all, that’s the relationship between a vine and its branches, isn’t it? A vine isn’t ornamental or decorative. A vine is utilitarian. It exists for the purpose of producing fruit. And so, the vine gives all of the nutrients and all of the strength it has to its branches so that they are able to produce fruit. The vine assigns purpose to the branches by demanding from them fruit, but the vine also provides all of the substance, all of the lifeblood that is needed so that the branches can produce fruit. The branches are merely the expression of the vine. And, this is who the church is in relation to Christ! Christ attaches us to himself. Christ gives us his lifeblood, his strength, his nourishment. Christ gives us purpose by calling for fruit, but Christ supplies all of the strength and all of grace and all of the power so that his fruit can be produced through us. Christ gives us our purpose and Christ gives us our ability to fulfill that purpose. This is the difference in the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. This is the difference between the vine of Israel that was and that Vine of Christ that is! In the Old Covenant, Israel was the vine responsible for its own fruit, its own righteousness, its own obedience to the Law. And, they were not able. But, in the New Covenant, Christ is the vine, and we are the branches. We aren’t responsible for creating fruit by our strength and our ability and our capacity; rather, we produce the fruit of the Vine by the power of the Vine and the strength of the Vine and the capacity of the Vine.

Abiding in the Vine

“Abide in me, and I in you…for apart from me you can do nothing.” And so, 10 times Jesus says that we who are the branches must ‘abide’ or remain or stay or dwell in him. And, we are to remain in him because our lives are designed with a purpose in mind. Our lives are designed for the purpose of bearing the fruit of Christ to the glory of God. That is, we are designed to make manifest in us the love of God and peace of God and kindness of God and joy of God and goodness of God so that the world might be drawn to God and glorify God. And, we are powerless to achieve any of those things on our own. Separated and isolated from Christ, we whither and die. We are powerless and ineffective as a branch that has been cut away from its vine. We are worth nothing more than firewood. “Apart from (him) we can do nothing.”

Losing Our Purpose

APPLICATION: And so, If we aim at joy and peace and kindness and goodness apart from Christ, and we are working against the very purpose for which we were made. We try to muster up the strength and the nutrients that we need to have what we most want. We try to muster up joy. We try to muster up goodness. We try to muster up kindness and peace. And, we’re left dry because we’re a branch detached from its vine, and apart from our vine we can do nothing. And, we’re left in misery and worry and purposelessness and ultimately despair because we can be who we are designed to be. We are left without our purpose and without any ability to fulfill it. So, we have the search for joy, but not ability to carry it out. We have the desire for purpose, but no chance at fulfilling it. Is it any wonder why their is such hopelessness all around us?

The Vine is the Supplier

“If you abide....ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” And, that’s why there’s a contrasting verse for verse 5. It’s an answer. It’s the difference-maker. In verse 5, Jesus says that ‘apart from (him) (we) can do nothing.’ But then, notice what He says in contrast to that in verse 7. In verse 7, He says that if we abide in him and his word abides in us, then with a mere request whatever we wish, whatever we desire, whatever we want will be done for us. So, in verse 5, we may be mustering up all of the strength that we have to be good and kind and joyful and peaceful, and we keep striking out because we’re detached from the Vine. We keep landing on misery and anxiety and worry. Despite the expenditure of all of our energy and work and force, we still feel worthless. But, in verse 7, we make a request, we ask, and whatever we desire to be done is done for us because we are abiding in the Vine. Apart from the Vine we are powerless, but with the vine we are unstoppable. You see, the Vine is our supplier. He supplies our health. He supplies our strength. He supplies our purpose. Away from the Vine, we have no supply! The Vine is the difference between a withering death and a fruitful life.

APPLICATION: This brings us back to the issue of joy. To have joy requires us receiving what we want. We want acceptance from others, a perfect marriage, and a stress-free, high-paying job. We want children that are obedient and respectful. We want good health and ideal vacations. And so, we have all of these ideals of what we want, and those wishes become needs in terms of our joy. But, in this world of brokenness, the more things we need to have joy the less joyful we will be. So, how can Jesus promise that if we abide in him we will get what we wish? How can Jesus promise that abiding in him will lead to the fullness of joy? Abiding in Christ changes our wishes. Abiding in Christ transforms what we need in order to be happy. Abiding in Christ makes God’s will our wishes. Abiding in Christ so transforms our heart that we begin to pray for God to do what God already wants and intends to do. And, the very things that we desire to happen and wish to happen and need to happen becomes what will actually happen. Do you see how this brings about fullness of joy?

Pruned for Production

“my Father is the vinedresser…he takes away, and....he prunes.” And, that’s what the Father is seeking to accomplish in your life. You’ll notice that Jesus doesn’t just say that He is the Vine, but He also says that the Father is the vinedresser. And, as the vinedresser, He primarily does two things. 1) He cuts away those branches that are fruitless. That is, He cuts away those who profess Christ with their mouths, but deny him with their lives. He cuts away those who say they love Jesus, but their actual lives produce the fruit that says the opposite. They are fruitless and pointless to branches. They take up space where fruit could be. They are not producing fruit and are only good for the bonfire. 2) And, He prunes the branches that are bearing fruit so that they might bear more fruit. If you’ve ever driven past the vineyard that’s close to our church, you know this is how vines work. The branches begin to sprout, and then for a time that seems so short, they produce fruit. They serve their purpose. And then, the farmer cuts them back until they appear dead. It looks like he’s killed them. That is, until they come back during the next harvest with an even larger harvest than before.

The Pruning Providence of God

APPLICATION: Pruning seems, at first glance, to be counterintuitive. In retrospect, it’s radiant and beautiful. I’ve cut back crepe myrtles after they’ve had the most beautiful blooms, and when you cut them back, they just look like sticks. It feels like you just killed them. But, by the next summer, the plant is healthier and bigger and has more blooms than the years before. I’ve also skipped cutting back my crepe myrtles before. The plant looks bigger, and you might be tempted to think that you did it a favor by sparing it the pain of pruning, but then when summer comes, it doesn’t bloom. Your pruning in the Christian life is painfully wonderful. God takes his word, and like a farmer on his vine, He performs surgery on your life. You read it, and hear it preached, and it feels like your being cut to death. But, it’s the old fruit being cleaned away so that the new can come. You experience hardship in your life. In the providence of God, He allows you to know pain and sorrow so profound that you wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy, but like Job after He’d lost everything, you’re able to say, “Before my ears had heard of your ways, but now my eyes I have seen your glory.” It’s the pruning providence of God refining you like a fine metal in the fire so that you are able to have more joy, more fruit, more glory than before.

Christ’s Joy to the Fill

“that my joy may be in you” Jesus doesn’t just want us to have joy. He wants us to have his joy. After all, He’s the vine. He’s the supplier. He’s not just offering you his purpose and his strength, but also his joy. And, Jesus’ joy doesn’t come by the world’s methods. In fact, Jesus’ joy comes the opposite way the world says. The world says you need to follow your heart. Jesus says that you need to follow the Father’s commands. The world says you need to be the king of your own life and your own body and your own decisions. Jesus says that you need to submit to the Father’s kingship in every area of your life. Christ’s joy will never come by the world’s ways. And, the more you obey, the more you will abide. And the more that you abide, the more fruit you will produce in your life. And, the more fruit you produce in your life, the more joy that you will have.

APPLICATION: The question that Jesus is presenting to us this morning is this: Do you want a joy that is real, or a joy that is passing away? Do you want a joy that enduring, or do you want a joy that is rotting? You’ve got to decide for yourself. Will you trust you, or will you trust God? Will you be a slave to your feelings and to your appetites and to your ideas, or will you submit yourself fully to the reign of God as King? Whose joy do you want? For God says, “15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” . Brothers and sisters, abide in him. Find your pleasure in God, and it will be as everlasting as He is.

APPLICATION: The joy of Christ is an active joy, not a passive joy. That is, it doesn’t just sit there, and wait for joy to strike like a bolt of lightning. It’s a joy that is rooted in a love for God and a trust that his way is the best way even when it doesn’t look like it.