Joy in Christ from Sin

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

6 In this you rejoice...” (1 Peter 1:3-6a)

What does Joy look like?

What is Joy?

From an OT dictionary

JOY:

The experience of deliverance and the anticipation of salvation provide the most significant occasions for rejoicing among the people of God in the OT. The coming of the Messiah, who delivers his people and brings salvation becomes the basis for rejoicing in the NT. The response of joy, gladness, or happiness is not only a deep inward feeling, but is expressed in celebration when God’s people gather together.

Hebrews 12:1-4 “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”

Neh 8:9-10 “And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law. Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.””

1. We have Joy in Christ _because he has set us free from sin._

Colossians 1:13–14

"He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

Psalm 16:8–11 (ESV)

8 I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. 9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. 10 For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.

11 You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

2. Joy may be stolen _when sin is ignored or indulged._

Sin outstrips other human troubles by perverting special human excellence's.

When people devise and defend high-minded political fraud, when a musician feels a spasm of happy satisfaction over the sour review of a colleague’s recital, when a drug dealer wants and plans the hooking of a fresh customer, when a teenager reviles his confused grandmother, when we put other people on a tight moral budget while making plenty of allowances for ourselves—when we human beings do these things, we exhibit a corruption of thought, emotion, intention, speech, and disposition. By such abuse of our highest powers, we who are fearfully and wonderfully made, we creatures of special dignity and responsibility, evoke not only grief and consternation but also blame.1

1 Plantinga, C., Jr. (1995). Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin (p. 3). Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Moreover, the veins of sin interlace through most of the rest of what is wrong in our lives...1

1 Ibid

The New International Version (1984) Struggling With Sin

14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.b For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

The New International Version (1984) Life Through the Spirit

8 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,a 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature,b God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.c And so he condemned sin in sinful man,d 4 in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

What some may attribute to the need for social justice, history & scripture and the witness of the Holy Spirit shows that the underlying issues stems from sin itself, and the sinful nature.

Its easy to point fingers and virtue signal today more than ever, yet to take responsibility for oneself and the reason for one’s lack of joy takes personal courage.

It takes a leap of faith in trusting God for what we cannot do ourselves in order to restore joy in to our lives- namely, the riddance of sin.

The Bible presents sin by way of major concepts, principally lawlessness and faithlessness, expressed in an array of images: sin is the missing of a target, a wandering from the path, a straying from the fold. Sin is a hard heart and a stiff neck. Sin is blindness and deafness. It is both the overstepping of a line and the failure to reach it—both transgression and shortcoming. Sin is a beast crouching at the door. In sin, people attack or evade or neglect their divine calling. These and other images suggest deviance: even when it is familiar, sin is never normal. Sin is disruption of created harmony and then resistance to divine restoration of that harmony. Above all, sin disrupts and resists the vital human relation to God, and it does all this disrupting and resisting in a number of intertwined ways. Sinful life, as Geoffrey Bromiley observes, is a partly depressing, partly ludicrous caricature of genuine human life.2 1

2 2 Bromiley, “Sin,” in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. 4, ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1988), p. 519.

1 Plantinga, C., Jr. (1995). Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin (p. 5). Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

in killing our joy, sin isn’t only destructive...its also generative. Once fed it tends to double, grow and yield more and more sin.

Proverbs 29:6 (ESV)

6 An evil man is ensnared in his transgression, but a righteous man sings and rejoices.

Colossians 1:13–14

"He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

Psalm 32:1 (ESV)

1 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

1 Peter 4:1–2 (ESV)

4 Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.

3. Joy in Christ from sin _ restores our relationship with God_.

In this age where there is growing tolerance of sin, comes misery. Misery only reigns with elements of fear, depression, loneliness, disconnection, interpersonal friction, and empty-ness. It is the absence of a restored relationship with God which can only come by repentance and acceptance of His forgiveness.

"Sin may not cut the relationship for Christians; it DOES cut the fellowship"

Dr. David Jeremiah

Isaiah 35:10 (ESV)

10 And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Philippians 4:4–7 (ESV)

4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.