Fruit of the Spirit: Joy (Philippians 4:4)

This sermon was preached to Grace Church Guildford on 9 July 2023. The audio recording of the sermon can be found below along with the transcript.

What is your happiest memory? At what point in your life so far have you experienced great joy? Maybe it was a holiday you had as a child, or a sporting success you enjoyed as a teenager. Maybe your mind goes to a special moment with a parent or a loved one. If you’re married, perhaps you think of your wedding day, or if you went to university, your graduation. If you have children, maybe you remember that first time you held them in your arms, or they said the words ‘Mama’ or ‘Dada’. Perhaps those of you who are retired look back on your career with joy, are pleased with all that you were able to achieve and do. Or maybe when you think of joy, you think less about the past, and more about the present, about the things that you enjoy doing now in this current season of life. A quiet night in with family, or an exciting day out with friends. Eating good food and enjoying great weather, going on holiday, having a hobby. What is it that brings you joy? When have you been, or when are you, at your happiest?

In our Sunday morning sermons this summer, we are considering the fruit of the Spirit together. Just as an orange tree produces oranges, and an apple tree produces apples, Paul tells us in Galatians 5 that God’s Spirit produces a kind of spiritual fruit in the lives of his people. It is a single fruit that is made up of at least nine different qualities and characteristics, in the way that an orange is a single fruit with lots of different segments, or the way a bunch of grapes all grow together. In Galatians 5:22, Paul tells us that ‘the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.’

Jamie started the series off last week by speaking of the first fruit, the fruit of love. And so, in his absence today, I am continuing the series by considering the next segment of this spiritual fruit, that of joy. And as we shall see this morning, the Bible has a great deal to say about joy. Indeed, when many great theologians sat down to write what is known as the Westminster Catechism 400 years ago, they decided to start that masterpiece by summing up the message of the whole Bible, and the purpose of every one of our lives, by talking about joy. For they concluded that the chief end of man, the reason why this world exists and why you and I have been placed within it, it is ‘to glorify God and enjoy him forever.’ If you are here this morning, and you somehow got the impression that Christianity is a joyless religion, then I’m afraid you have got it terribly wrong. For the truth that we shall see this morning is that Christianity is all about joy, is bubbling over, overflowing with joy, and the Christian life is the only life that can bring you true, lasting joy. For God has even placed his Spirit in his people to produce such joy in their hearts.

In order to see this together this morning, we are going to consider a single verse in Philippians 4. For when it comes to speaking about joy, the letter to the Philippians is the obvious place to go, for it is packed full of references to and teaching on joy. If we call Beethoven’s 9th Symphony ‘The Ode to Joy’, we should certainly call this letter to the Philippians ‘The letter of Joy’, for it is filled with joy from beginning to end. It starts straight away in 1:5, where Paul speaks about always praying with joy when he prays for this church that he planted in the important Roman city of Philippi. And the references to joy continue throughout the rest of the letter. However, this theme undoubtedly reaches its climax in the centre of the passage we read together earlier, when in 4:4 we read: ‘Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice.’ It is a simple verse, and so this morning I want us to ask three simple questions of it in order to understand and unpack its teaching: (1) What? (2) Where? (3) When?

1.     WHAT? – ‘Rejoice’

‘So good they named it twice.’ That’s the classic line that was made famous in the 1970s by the film, and song, entitled, ‘New York, New York’. The title was a play on the fact that the city of New York is situated in the state of New York. And so, the official full address of the city, is New York [comma] New York. And the song suggests that the repetition of the name is meant to underline the importance of the place as much as it is to reference the state. That New York is so great, they named it twice. And we can say something similar of our verse this morning, for in it Paul not only tells us to rejoice, but he tells us to do so twice. He writes: ‘Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice.’ This command is clearly so important, Paul gives it twice. Or rather, he gives it three times, for back in 3:1, he gives this church in Philippi the same command. There in 3:1, he wrote, ‘Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord!’

The importance of this command to rejoice is clear to us by its repetition. And yet, have you ever stepped back to think about strange this command is? We usually view joy as something we have, not something we do. Joy is a feeling that we get when we are happy or pleased. It is seen as something that simply comes to us, and yet here it is commanded of us. Here Paul says joy is something we can be active in achieving, not merely passive in receiving. Paul isn’t simply suggesting we sit around and wait for joy to come to us. No, he tells us to go out and find joy, pursue joy, to grasp hold of joy. Paul tells us, commands us, to rejoice.

You know, we are going to see this morning that this is true for you no matter how you feel or what is going on in your life right now. I don’t know what everyone here is going through at this moment in time. But I know some of you are going through real struggles and sufferings. Some of you are grieving the recent loss of loved ones. Others are fearing what will happen in the future. Some of you are dealing with deep disappointments. Others have been let down and hurt by family and friends. Some of you are stuck in a rut, can’t seem to overcome your sin, or understand your circumstances. Others are desperately lonely this morning. I know enough of what some of you are going through right now, to realise this command to rejoice may seem impossible, even insensitive, to many this morning. And yet, from this text, I also know that all of us, no matter what is going on in our lives, all of us are commanded to rejoice. And indeed, all of us can rejoice. For Paul will show us that we can find joy in the most unlikely places. That this command which may seem impossible, is actually achievable for all of us.

How? How can Paul command us to rejoice? How can we experience joy no matter what our circumstances might be? Well, that is the question the rest of our verse and sermon will go on to answer. However, before we press on to consider where we can find this joy, it is important to reflect on and apply what Jamie taught us all last week. If you think back to what he said when introducing the series, Jamie reminded us that fruit must come from a tree, it can’t just stuck onto a tree. All the cellotape and superglue in the world can’t attach an orange to an orange tree, or an apple to an apple tree. No, they must grow out from the tree. And we saw that was true of the fruit of love last week. We can’t simply add acts of love to our lives. No, the Spirit must pour out God’s love into our hearts. Only then will we act with love for others. And the same is true of joy this week. If we are ever going to experience this joy, it must come from the Spirit, it cannot simply be from ourselves. If we are to perform this command, the Spirit must produce this joy in our hearts. After all, joy is a fruit of the Spirit, it is not simply a work of our flesh.

Brother or sister, do you see how you can take comfort in that this morning? If this command seems impossible to you, remember that it is impossible, without God. And yet, if it is given by God, generated by his Spirit, joy will well up within you no matter what is happening around you. For we are not only commanded to have joy; friends, we can have joy. For it is the gift of God to give, it is a fruit of his work in our heart, not simply the result of a positive attitude or pleasant present situation. Brother or sister, if rejoicing seems impossible to you this morning, if your heart feels cold, your spirit low, if you are starting to switch off right now because you lack the will to even begin to try to rejoice in your current circumstances, then before we press on, I want you to stop for a moment and pray, pray as you sit there in your seat. [...] Ask the Lord to give you this joy, to generate it in your heart. He commands you to rejoice this morning, so call on him to cause you to keep that command.

That’s what the early church father Augustine, did in his famous prayer: ‘Lord command what you will, and then will what you command.’ That is, he prayed, Lord tell me what to do, and then give me the strength and resources to do it. Friend, why don’t you do that this morning? Or why don’t you pray that for others, for that brother or sister who you know is struggling right now? Why don’t you pray for them, what Paul prays for the church in Rome. Here in Philippians 4:4, Paul commands the church to rejoice. But in Romans 15:13 he calls on God to give joy. There he prays: ‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so you may overflow... by the power of the Holy Spirit.’ Paul commands us to pursue joy. And so, the first step we should take is to pray for it.

Pray for it for ourselves, and for others. Indeed, this a great way to apply this whole series on the fruit of the Spirit. Did you notice that each segment of this fruit is both required by God, commanded in his Word, and also received from God, given by his Spirit [...].

2.     WHERE? – ‘In the Lord’

This week, Americans celebrated the fourth of July. It has almost been 250 years since they made their Declaration of Independence, which included the famous phrase that all people have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You know, it’s not just Christian’s who pursue joy. For that is what many people spend their life and liberty doing: pursuing happiness. If you were to observe the bars and clubs of Guildford last night, that is what you would have seen. People pursuing a good time, trying to take hold of happiness. Indeed, if you go out to the park this afternoon, and see families enjoying quality time together, there again you will see those who are pursuing happiness, trying to enjoy themselves. Some look to their careers for joy, others to hobbies and holidays. All around us, people are spending their lives pursuing happiness, making memories, looking for joy in all kinds of places. And if we are honest, many of them find some of it. There is joy to be found in family and friends, in work and pleasure. That is why we all have the happy memories we thought of earlier. Praise God, this world is full of things to enjoy. And yet, the Bible tells us there is only one place that the best kind of joy is found. As David declares in Psalm 4:7, God puts more joy in our hearts than the world has even when their grain and wine abound! If you are here this morning and are trying to find joy in other places, if you are pursuing happiness in friends or family, in success at school or work, if your main source of joy comes from the things of this world, whether simple things like fun hobbies and nice holidays, or sinful things, like sexual sin and substance abuse, then you need to know that there is a better joy to be found than any you have ever experienced. For you can find true joy, lasting joy, ‘in the Lord’. That’s where Paul tells us we can find joy, ‘in the Lord’, that is where Paul commands us to rejoice.

We have already seen that this joy Paul speaks of is from the Lord (that is it is given and generated by his Spirit). However, here we see that it is a joy that is in the Lord. That the Lord is the soil within which this fruit of joy grows. God himself, in his person and works, is the chest in which we find this treasure. If football supporters rightly take joy from, rejoice in, their team when it wins. If parents rightly draw joy from, rejoice in, their children when they are successful. Then Paul says that Christians are to primarily find their joy, rejoice in, their God. Our joy, our rejoicing, is to be in the Lord. Now it’s important that we don’t miss this. For it is easy to misread Paul, and to think he is telling us to find joy in the things of the Lord: reading God’s Word, coming to church, sharing the Gospel, walking alongside brothers and sisters, using our gifts to serve. It is easy to think that this is what Paul is saying, because all those things really do bring us joy, indeed bring us better joy than the things of this world ever can. Afterall, Paul himself says at the start of our passing, in 4:1, that this church in Philippi, are those whom he loves and longs for, are his ‘joy and crown’. There is great joy to be found in the things of the Lord, specifically Paul says in the people of the Lord, and yet Christian there is even greater joy to be found in the Lord himself. For Paul is telling us not only to rejoice in the Lord’s blessings, but to rejoice in his being. We all get this when it comes to human relationships. If a wife asks her husband what he enjoys about her, you can be sure that the wrong answer for him to give is that he enjoys her cooking, or income she earns, or help she is with the kids. It would be foolish for a husband to find more joy in the blessings that his wife brings him, than in his wife herself. And yet, that is exactly what we often do with God. We can often find it easier to rejoice in the things of the Lord than in the Lord himself, enjoy all that God does for us, rather than simply what he is to us.

Christian, does Jesus bring you joy? I’m not asking whether he brings you lots of stuff which then brings you joy. I’m not asking whether you enjoy serving at church, listening to sermons, or singing songs. No, does Jesus himself bring you joy? If your avenues for service were cut off, if you were severed from all your spiritual relationships, if you became ill and were no longer able to do all the things that you love to do here at Grace Church, would you still be able to rejoice? Christian, is Jesus enough? Is Jesus by himself enough to bring you joy? Or do you need other things added onto him to be able to rejoice? Is the Lord so much your highest joy, and greatest treasure, that if you had nothing but the Lord, if your family forsook and friends fell away from you, if your marriage broke down and your church closed, if you lost your job and your health failed, if you were house-bound and bed-bound, would Jesus still be enough to bring you joy? Would you be so used to drawing joy from the wells of your Saviour, that even if your circumstances changed, your joy would not, for your joy would still be stable in the Lord? And the fact that this is the kind of joy Paul is speaking about in our verse is confirmed when we ask our final question.

3.     WHEN? – ‘Always’

When my wife Sarah and I got married 8 years ago, we moved from Northern Ireland to the south of England to start working in London. And one of the great benefits of doing so was the huge improvement in the weather. Did you know that in much of Ireland it rains around 2 in every 3 days? And here in Surrey it is usually several degrees warmer! Now, such a change comes will all kinds of advantages. It means you don’t have to always carry a coat with you, or check the weather forecast, every time you are going to step out the door. However, it also means you can grow so many more types of fruit and vegetables. There is a reason that Ireland is famous for its potatoes, and that’s because it’s the crop that grows the best in our climate. Whereas here in the south of England, we grow all kinds of fruits and vegetables that, unless you kept them in a greenhouse back in Northern Ireland, they would be unlikely to survive or thrive. Most fruit trees are pretty sensitive about the circumstances in which they grow. And yet, here Paul tells us this fruit of joy can grow up in our hearts regardless of our situation or circumstances. For he not only tells us to ‘Rejoice in the Lord’, but to ‘Rejoice in the Lord always.’ That is at all times, all seasons, no matter what storm we may be experiencing, this fruit of joy is able to survive, even thrive, in any circumstances.

If you are here this morning chasing joy, pursuing happiness, in other things, then see here why joy in the Lord is the best kind of joy that you can ever have. Why joy in God, from God, is greater than any joy you can have from the things of this world. For it is a joy than is not subject to our situation, a joy that can never be removed by our circumstances. You realise don’t you, that no matter how happy your happiest memory is, it is still just a memory? An event in the past that cannot be repeated, a joy that you can never return to or replicate. And you know, don’t you, that no matter how much you might enjoy something in the present, no matter where you are find happiness for now, that that joy is fleeting, momentary, subject to the storms and situations of life. Whatever it is that is bringing you joy right now, unless it is in the Lord, it will not last. That crazy night out comes to an end, and you wake up with regrets and consequences the next morning. Your loved ones move away, or pass away, and you don’t see them anymore. Your health fades and you can no longer enjoy those holidays and hobbies that you used to. Outside of the Lord, joy is a fleeting thing, here for a moment and gone the next. And yet, joy in the Lord, is a joy that lasts, goes on and on, that we can rejoice with always.

Friend, the reason that you are pursuing happiness, searching for joy, is that you were made to do just that. As we said at the start of our sermon, the chief end of man, the reason why you were created, was ‘to glorify God and enjoy him forever.’ You were made for joy, and you can only ultimately find it in Jesus. If you are here this morning, and you don’t know this lasting joy, this ‘always rejoicing’ joy. If you are not following Jesus as your Lord, have not taken him to be your Saviour, then will you do so this morning? Will you not turn away your sin, those things that rob and ruin your joy, and come to Jesus to start enjoying him forever, like you were made to do. For if you come to Jesus, if you take him as your Lord, you will find true and lasting joy. A joy that is not found in our circumstances, but in our Saviour. A joy that doesn’t depend on what happens to us, but on who he is.

This is the only reason why, what Paul says here, makes any sense. If Paul simply told us to ‘rejoice always’, then he would be asking us to do the impossible. He would be simply making a generic feel good statement, a kind of cheer up, be positive, make the most of whatever life throws at you. He would be urging us to have a joy that is based on our feelings, not on the facts. For the fact is, that there isn’t a whole lot of joy to be had when your loved ones pass away, or your body starts to break down, or your children turn against you and cause you great grief. The only reason this verse makes any sense, that Paul can put those two words together ‘rejoice always’, is because they are joined by that phrase ‘in the Lord.’ For while it is not possible to always rejoice in our circumstances, it is possible to always rejoice in our Saviour. Christian, we can rejoice always, because in the Lord we always have a reason to rejoice. We can’t always rejoice in our spouses or children, for one day they will leave us or fail us. We can’t always rejoice in our strength or health, for one day that will fade and be lost forever. We can’t always rejoice in our possessions or wealth, for one day we will either lose them or leave them behind. But we can always rejoice in Jesus. There is always a reason to rejoice in Jesus, for his character never changes, his faithfulness never fades, no matter what storm or situation we find ourselves in, Jesus is always the same and so in him we can always rejoice.

If you want to put it another way, you can say that there is never any excuse for not rejoicing in the Lord. Christian, why are you not enjoying the Lord right now? What reason do you have for not rejoicing in Him this morning? Is your God not a good, a great, a glorious God? Has he not lavished his love upon you? Saved you at great cost in sending his Son to die on the cross for your sins? And has he not declared that he has unimaginable power, inexhaustible power, by raising Christ from the dead? Has he not put his Spirit within your heart so that you might know him and love him, and experience this joy this morning? Brothers and sisters, do you not see that there can never be any excuse for not rejoicing in the Lord? What do we have that he has not graciously given us? What do we need that he cannot provide? Even if we are grieving and mourning, hurting and suffering, we can always still be rejoicing in the Lord. For as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 6:10, as he describes himself, he says that he is ‘sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.’

If you don’t believe that that is possible this morning, that even in great sorrow and suffering that you can still have great joy, then the example that Paul sets should prove it to you. 2 Corinthians 6:10, he can describe himself as ‘sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.’ And that is exactly what we see in this letter to the Philippians. We’ve already heard that this letter, above all of the other letters in the New Testament, is a letter of joy. It is filled with joy, and yet it was written during one of the most difficult times of Paul’s life. This letter of joy was not written when he was enjoying a relaxing holiday, or seeing great success in his ministry, no it was written as Paul lay imprisoned in Roman custody, guarded by soldiers, prevented from furthering his ministry, separated from all of his friends and churches, and waiting for his final likely execution for preaching the good news of the Gospel. Paul had every reason in the world to be low in spirits, discouraged and distressed, and yet what does he tells us in this letter? Again and again, he tells us that he is rejoicing. Even in our passage, in 4:12, he says that is rejoicing. Brother or sister, you will never find yourself in a situation that thinking on the Lord, going to the Lord, casting yourself upon the Lord, cannot bring you joy. The Lord is an inexhaustible spring of joy, a river of gladness that never runs dry. Even if like Paul, we are in prison, kept from our loved ones, charged with unjust allegations and waiting for our execution, we can still be rejoicing. Oh, there never has been, there never will be, a situation where you cannot rejoice in the Lord. See here that we are not only commanded to rejoice in the Lord always, but that like Paul we can rejoice in the Lord always. And indeed, we will. We will rejoice in the Lord always. For one day, this fruit of joy that God is growing in our hearts, will fully ripen. One day we will rejoice always. For as we heard at the beginning of our service from Psalm 16, we will come into the presence of our Lord, and there we will experience fullness of joy, at his right hand we will find pleasures forevermore. Oh, what joy there is in being a Christian! Endless joy now in this life. Eternal joy in the next!