These things have I spoken unto you, that My Joy might remain in you
Christ’s things to make His disciples happy
A revelation of
I.
HEAVEN (Joh_14:1-5) as
1. A Father’s house.
2. Capacious.
3. Prepared.
4. Taken to by Himself.
II. THE FATHER.
1. Christ tells them that they have a Father. That was the great want of their souls.
2. He tells them that those who have seen Him have seen the Father. All the love, faithfulness, tenderness, wisdom of the Father was in Him. Therefore they might trust Him.
III. The SPIRIT (Joh_14:12-31). He tells them that He would not leave them comfortless. The Spirit would
1. Give them power to do wonderful works.
2. Qualify them to pray successfully.
3. Abide with them forever.
IV. UNION WITH HIMSELF (Joh_15:1-11). He showed that this union was
1. Vital.
2. Fruitful.
3. Necessary. (R. V. Pryce, LL. B.)
Christ’s joy
The greatest of sufferers was the happiest of men. He exulted in the prospect of Gethsemane and the Cross.
I. HIS OWN JOY. It was the joy
1. Of uninterrupted communion with the Father (Joh_4:31-32).
2. Of accomplishing His Father’s will (Heb_10:7; Psa_40:6; Luk_22:41).
3. Of anticipating the result of His great work (Isa_13:11; Heb_12:2).
II. THE BELIEVER’S PARTICIPATION IN THE JOY.
1. It is the Saviour’s joy. Is it possible to have this? Yes; we may partake of the joys of fellowship, obedience, hope. Present service is ours, and future victory will be.
2. It is a joy that may be full, or fulfilled. A man has joy as soon as he becomes a believer, but it is not filled up. Jesus wishes it to be, and puts into his hand a cup of joy which overflows. It is a paradox; but the Christian, though sorrowful, is always rejoicing (2Co_1:3-6; 2Co_6:9-10; Php_2:17; Php_4:4).
3. It is a joy which none can take away (Joh_16:22). It is not in the power of the world to rob a Christian of his joy. (T. Stephenson.)
The sources of Christ’s joy
I. THE BEAUTY AND PERFECTION OF HIS OWN CHARACTER.
1. As an innocent child.
2. As a righteous man.
II. HIS EXQUISITE SENSE OF THE MEANING AND BEAUTY OF NATURE. No artist, or poet, or psalmist so revelled in the glories of creation. He might well do so; for He knew it with the knowledge not of a spectator or student, but of a Maker.
III. HIS TESTIMONY OF HIS FATHER, DECLARING HIS NAME AND WONDROUS LOVE. If a Newton cannot tell his discoveries without being overjoyed; if a reformer cannot but be enthusiastic about his mission, what must Christ have felt, whose work was to reveal the Father?
IV. HIS LIFE OF SERVICE AND SELF-SACRIFICE (Heb_12:3). (J. T.Stannard.)
Christ’s inner joy
I. ITS SOURCES.
1. The consciousness of the abiding presence of the Father. Harmony of Spirit with heaven.
2. The obedience and attachment of the disciples. Great is the joy of a tutor or parent when the scholar or child manifests proficiency and perseverence.
3. The beneficent effects of His working. It was His joy to take this up, and his meat to finish it.
4. The foresight of the working of His truth in the world, and its ultimate results. “He shall not fail nor be discouraged.” “He shall see of the travail of His soul.”
II. ITS CHARACTERISTICS.
1. It was not like the joy of the world, which is often mere levity, never lasts, and is quenched by death.
2. It was
(1) A steady joy. All through His life, from His infancy to His Cross, we see calm joy and obedience.
(2) A joy in the prospect of death (Heb_12:3).
(3) A lasting joy, not variable, like that of many of us--grasping at the clouds one day, and the next in the depths of despair.
(4) A shared joy. He lived not for Himself, but for others. Those who seek to bless others are always the most happy.
III. ITS INFLUENCE. Strength-inspiring, health-giving. Sterne said every smile tends to lengthen out the fragment of our lives. No wonder, with this inspiration, the apostles became what they did. What manner of men ought we to be? (Homiletic Magazine.)
The fellowship of Christ’s joy the source of true blessedness
This saying is strange, because our idea of Christ is that of the man of sorrows. Only on one occasion are we told that He rejoiced. But the saying seems stranger still when we look at the circumstances under which it was uttered--in sight of the agony and the Cross. Then remember to whom it wasspoken: to men for whom He had predicted martyrdom.
I. WHAT WAS THE BLESSEDNESS OF CHRIST? Note
1. That the blessedness of the infinite God is essentially incomprehensible. The thought of God is necessarily the thought of One infinite and eternal, without limit or change. But we can only conceive of blessedness as a change from the less to the more blessed. We know the light by knowing the darkness, and joy only by its changes. We are obliged, therefore, to think of God as rejoicing in His world, and as rising to a higher gladness when He had peopled His universe with creatures. In these two contradictory thoughts, both of which we must think and yet cannot reconcile, lies the mystery of the ever blessed God.
2. In God revealed in Christ, the mystery is yet deeper. How, if one with the Infinite, could His joy ever fail? Why, if foreseeing the results of His mission, could He sorrow? But observing Christ on His human side, His blessedness as the God-Man must be in some measure comprehensible. He humanity was as perfect as His divinity, and the emotions of the human Christ we can partly understand; and this will lead us to a comprehension in part of His Divine joy.
3. The elements of His joy were two fold. It came, He tells us
(1) By keeping the Father’s commandments. It was the feeling that He did not live for Himself--that He existed as Man to reveal the full glory of eternal love, that every toil and sorrow were helping on the Divine plan for man’s redemption--that formed His joy.
(2) By abiding in the Father’s love. Men might desert Him--this never did. His human nature might tremble, but His eye pierced beyond the sorrow into the sunshine of the Divine law behind it, and that was a mighty joy. Hence His frequent hours of prayer.
(3) Combining these two elements, we may understand how it was that He spoke of it so soon after His Spirit was troubled. For His blessedness and suffering arose from one source: the doing of the Father’s will. The consciousness of complete self-surrender gave Him gladness; yet the surrender produced the sorrow.
II. CAN THAT JOY RE COMMUNICATED? We find the answer in the preceding verse. Like their Master, the disciples were to surrender life to be the organ of God’s will, and then the consciousness of His love would dawn. In a sense, joy and sorrow are incommunicable. “The heart knoweth its own bitterness,” etc. But they are communicable just as we are one in sympathy and purpose with a friend. I know nothing of the joy of a stranger; but I do know the joy of a man with whom I am bound by the deep sympathies of love. So to enter into Christ’s joy we must become Christ-like. Amid anxiety and sorrow, a man first gives up his all to God; and amid His suffering there flashes the conviction, “God loves me,” and there steals over his heart a blessedness which is the joy of the Lord.
III. THE FELLOWSHIP OF CHRIST’S BLESSEDNESS IS THE ONLY SOURCE OF PERFECT JOY. Perfect joy has two conditions.
1. In its source it must be self-surrender to the highest love. All inward discord destroys joy, and that discord only ceases when a man loses the thought of self in devotion to something he regards as greater. The man who toils for wealth is never satisfied, because in the pursuit he is trying to lose the sense of self. The pleasure seeker plunges into every excitement that will drown reflection. The ambitious man loses the thought of self in the intense yearning for future achievement. In fine, man pants for the Infinite--for a boundless something to which he may yield his heart and be conscious of himself no more. This explains the idea of final absorption into the Deity, and the belief in the eternal sleep of death. But fellowship with the eternal joy of Christ furnishes the only anodyne to the unresting sense of self.
2. Real enjoyment must be independent of outward changes. The longing to attain a state of life superior to the accidents of time and change shows this. The wisest men have spoken of following the right, in the face of all consequences, as the source of the highest joy. The fellowship of Christ’s joy gives this. It gave it to Paul, who was enabled there by to glory in infirmity. Even death, which damps the joy of all other men, consummates the blessedness of those who, through fellowship of life, are partakers of the joy of Christ. (E. L. Hull, B. A.)
The abiding joy
I. ITS SOURCE. “These things have I spoken unto you.” He referred them especially to what He had just said. Union with Christ. “I am the Vine,” etc.
1. To be one with Christ is to enjoy the peace of God.
2. To be one with Christ is to walk in the right path--the path of truth, virtue, and honour. He is the Way.
3. To be one with Christ has its prospects. The crown is beyond the Cross. “Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you.”
II. ITS CONTINUANCE. “That My joy may remain in you.” The promise implies a state of heart which is never without sources of joy. Christians are subject to natural and moral grief; but when the clouds obscure the light and make the atmosphere cold, the sun is, nevertheless, in the heavens. Christian joy is perpetual, because
(1) Jesus is the same, yesterday, today, and forever, without change. The streams never dry while the fountain is full.
(2) Intercommunion never fails. He has ordained means which are infallible. This is a bold saying; but as the sun cannot fail to give life, the promise cannot fail to give comfort, prayer cannot fail to bring the blessing, and the communion of saints cannot fail to generate love.
III. ITS EXPANSIVENESS--“That your joy might be full.” The growth of the child, or the increased light of the sun until the perfect day, or the journey of the pilgrims Zion-ward, represents the advancing state of grace.
(1) Full in respect of its object. We have only touched the hem of His garment as yet. As faith is turned into sight, our joy increases.
(2) Full in respect of the subject. It is possible only when all fear of sin and death is removed. “Rejoice evermore”; that is, rejoice on to rejoicing, for sources of anxiety are left behind, and you and Christ are one. (Weekly Pulpit.)
The Christian’s joy
1. Jesus spoke these words to those who were about to be His representatives in the world. It was no easy mission on which He was sending them; but it was His will that they should go, not as soldiers on a forlorn hope, with the courage of despair, but in that holy joyous tone of spirit which means the courage of confident victory. And what He means for one set of disciples He means for all.
2. Note three elements of Christ’s joy.
I. HIS FILAL JOY. We are brought into the presence of it in chap. 17. Now it is His will that we should share the joy of sonship. We may do this by faith in His name and the possession of the Spirit of Adoption which He gives. What joy can equal that of even the greatest sufferer who trusts and delights in his Father in heaven?
II. THE JOY OF SERVICE. “I delight to do Thy will.” Even beyond results, beyond the luxury of doing good, there is a joy in the very serving itself. To gather the wanderers, to win the young, to alleviate suffering, drives away a thousand black thoughts, and fills the individual heart and the Church with joy. What a joyful ring there is in “Neither count I My life dear unto Myself, that I might finish My course with joy.” The self-same joy is open to us. Instead of being self-seekers, let us simply ask, “What is the will of God for me?” The narrow, dissatisfied, unhappy, will find their cure here.
III. THE SAVIOUR JOY. There are many passages in which this comes into view--e.g., when Jesus saw the poor and lowly gathering around Him, He “rejoiced in spirit”; and then, when the publican and sinner drew near, He likened Himself to the shepherd, who in rescuing the lost sheep, called his friends together, saying, “rejoice with me.” This is the joy for which He endured the Cross and despised the shame. Now He will have all Christians share in that very joy, and be glad in the fruits of the travail of His soul. (J. Culross, D. D.)
The nature and sources of Christian joy
This Divine joy is planted in the soul by the Holy Spirit. It is therefore an inward and spiritual joy; it is deep-rooted in the heart; it is solid and well founded; it is abiding and lasting; it is a satisfying joy, and purifying in its effects. It is a joy that flourishes most in adversity. It is a communicative joy. A man has not tasted what religion is if he does not seek to impart this joy to others. It is the joy of communion with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a humble joy; but it causes a man “to triumph in Christ.” (R. Cecil, M. A.)
Happiness and joy
Christ enters the world bringing joy: “Good tidings of great joy.” So now He leaves it, bestowing His gospel as a gift of joy. This testament of His joy He also renews in His parting prayer: “These things I speak in the world, that they might have My joy fulfilled in themselves.” “Man of sorrows” though we call Him, still He counts Himself the Man of joy. It is an impression that the Christian life is one of hardship and suffering: Christ, you perceive, has no such conception of it, and no such conception is true.
I. To clear this truth, it is necessary, first of all, to exhibit THE MISTAKE OF NOT DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN HAPPINESS AND JOY.
1. There is a distinction represented in the words themselves.
(1) Happiness is that which happens or comes by an outward befalling. It is what money yields, or will buy--settlement in life or rank, political standing, victory, power. All these stir a delight in the soul, which is not of the soul, but from without. Hence they are looked upon as happening to the soul, and, in that sense, create happiness. The Latin word “fortune” very nearly corresponds with the Saxon. For whatever came to the soul, bringing it pleasure, was considered to be its good chance, and was called fortunate.
(2) But joy differs from this, as being of the soul itself. And this appears in the original form of the word, which, instead of suggesting a “hap,” literally denotes a “leap” or “spring.” Here again, also, the Latin bad “exult”--a “leaping forth.” The radical idea, then, of joy is that the soul has such springs of life opened in its own blessed virtues, that it pours forth a sovereign joy from within. It is not the bliss of condition, but of character.
2. And we have many symbols of joy about us from which we might take the hint of a felicity higher than the mere pleasures of fortune or condition: the sportive children, too full of life to be able to restrain their activity; the birds pouring out their music, simply because it is in them. Precisely, too, history shows us the saints of God singing out their joy together in caves and dens of the earth, and the souls of martyrs issuing, with a shout, from the fires that crisp their bodies.
II. It is necessary, in order to a right conception of Christian joy, as now defined, that we discover HOW TO DISPOSE OF CERTAIN FACTS, WHICH COMMONLY PRODUCE A CONTRARY IMPRESSION.
1. Thus, when the Saviour bequeaths His joy to us, He lives a persecuted life, and passes through an agony to His death. Where, then, is the joy of which He speaks? To this I answer that He was a Man of sorrows in the matter of happiness; that is, in the outward condition of His earthly state; still He had ever within a joy, a spring of good, which was perfectly sufficient. Indeed, He reveals the victorious power of joy in the Divine nature itself; for God, in the contradictions of sinners, suffers a degree of abhorence and pain that may properly be called unhappiness; and He would be an unhappy Being were it not that the love He pours into their bosom is to Him a welling up eternally of conscious joy. And exactly so He represents Himself in the incarnate person of Christ. In His parable of the shepherd calling in his neighbours to rejoice with him over the sheep he has found, He opens the joy He feels as being that Shepherd. And then, how much does it signify when, coming to the close of His career, He says, glancing backward in thought over all He has experienced, “My joy,” bequeathing it to His disciples as His dearest legacy. What, then, does it signify of real privation or loss to become His follower!
2. But it requires, you will say, painful thought to begin such a life--sorrow, repentance, self-renunciation, and to pass through life under a cross. How can the Christian life be called a life of joy? It is not, I answer, in these things, taken simply by themselves. But consider what labours, cares, self-denials, all men have to suffer in the way of what is called success--in scholarships, e.g., and in war. Are these made unhappy because of the losses they are obliged to make? Are they not rather raised in feeling on this very account? But how is this? The solution is easy, viz., that the sacrifice made is a sacrifice of happiness, a sacrifice of comfort of condition; and the gain made is a gain of something more ennobling, a gain that partakes of the nature of joy. The man of industry and enterprise says within himself, These are not gifts of fortune; they are my conquests, tokens of my patience, economy, application, fortitude, integrity. In them his soul is elevated from within. And it will be found that even worldly men despise mere happiness. None but the tamest will sit down to be nursed by fortune. In such a truth you may see how it is possible for the repentances, sacrifices, self-denials, and labours of the Christian life to issue in joy.
III. THE POSITIVE REALITY ITSELF. We notice
1. The fact that, in a life of selfishness and sin, there is a wellspring of misery which is now taken away. No matter how fortunate the external condition of an unbelieving, evil mind, there is yet a disturbance, a sorrow within, too strong to be mastered by any outward felicity. The whole internal nature is in a state of discord. And this discord is the misery, the hell of sin. How much, then, does it signify that Christ takes away this? For Christ is the embodied harmony of God, and he that receives Him settles into harmony with Him. Just to exterminate the evil of the mind, and clear the sovereign hell which sin creates in it, would suffice to make a seeming paradise.
2. Besides, there is a fact more positive: the soul is no sooner set in peace with itself than it becomes an instrument in tune, discoursing heavenly music; and now no fires of calamity, no pains of outward torment, can for one moment break the sovereign spell of its joy.
3. But we must ascend to a plane that is higher. Little conception have we of the soul’s joy, or capacities of joy, till we see it established in God. It dares to call Him Father without any sense of daring. It is strong with His strength. It turns adversity into peace, for it sees a friendly hand ministering only good in what it suffers. In dark times it is never anxious, for God is its trust, and God will suffer no harm to befall it. To a mind thus tempered, fortune can add little, and as little take away.
4. The Christian type of character is a character rooted in the Divine love, and in that view has a sovereign bliss welling up from within. No power is strong enough to forbid love, none therefore strong enough to conquer the joy of love; for whoever is loved must be enjoyed. Besides, it is a peculiarity of love that it takes possession of its neighbour’s riches and successes, and makes them its own. Loving him, it loves all that he has for his sake. It understands the declaration well, “For all things are yours.” Having such resources of joy in its own nature, the word that signifies love, in the original of the New Testament, is radically one with that which signifies joy. According to the family registers of that language, they are twins of the same birth. Love is joy, and all true joy is love. And Christ is an exhibition to us of this fact in His own Person, a revelation of God’s eternal joy, as being a revelation of God’s eternal love, coming down thus to utter in our ears this glorious call, “Enter ye into the joy of your Lord.” He finds us hunting after condition. He says, “Behold My poverty, watch with Me in My agony, follow Me to My Cross. Coming up into love, you clear all dependence of condition, you ascend into the very joy of God; and this is My joy. This I have taught you; this I now bequeath to your race.”
IV. SOME OF THE INSPIRING AND QUICKENING THOUGHTS THAT CROWD UPON US IN THE SUBJECT REVIEWED.
1. Joy is for all men. It does not depend on circumstance or condition; if it did, it could only be for the few.
2. The reason why men have it not is that they do not seek it where it is--in the receiving of Christ and the spirit of His life. They go after it in things without, not in character within.
3. It is important that we hold some rational and worthy conception of the heavenly felicity. How easy it is for the Christian, who has tasted the true joy of Christ, to let go the idea of joy and slide into the pursuit only of happiness or the good of condition. No getting into heaven as a place will compass it. You must carry it with you, else it is not there. Consider only whether heaven be in you now. For heaven is nothing but the joy of a perfectly harmonized being filled with God and His love. (H. Bushnell, D. D.)
The difference between worldly mirth and Christian joy
Mirth comes from external things which tickle the senses and please the appetite; but joy comes from the happy spirit within us. If this be so, a poor sickly man may not be full of mirth, but he may be full of joy; while a rich man may be sinful and mirthful, and yet have no joy. Mirth comes from outward things, and it therefore lasts only for a short time; but joy springs from an inward eternal force of blessedness. The other day, in London, a kind friend called at my hotel and left me a bouquet of beautiful flowers. I had them put in water, and I said, “I will take these flowers home with me”; but they faded, and the sweet perfume was gone; they were beautiful and fragrant only for a time. So mirth is pleasant while it lasts, but very soon it is gone like a dream; but the joy that comes from trusting God and doing His will has no end; it is an increasing eternal delight. What is more beautiful than a balloon rising in the sky? but what is more unsightly than the beautiful thing emptied and lying, an unshapely mass, upon the ground? Mirth may well be compared to fireworks. How grand they are! why, they put out the light of the stars! but, then, you know, when the fireworks have finished their explosive din, the stars keep on shining forever. Equally enduring shall be the joy of the believer and doer of God’s will; he shall be like a light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. Let me remind you of the martyr, John Bradford. When the morning dawned on which he was to be put to death, he had such peace within him that he swung upon the rail of the bedstead in his dungeon, and while he swung he cried, “Oh, I am so happy! We shall light a fire today that will never be put out!” Then he went forth, Smiling and joyful, to the stake in Smithfield, glorifying God; and so he died. Can you find anything in sinful pleasure to give a joy like that? Will you find it in the intoxicating cup? In gambling? In any of the sinful indulgencies of life? No, no; they are not solid; they let you down at the critical moment when they ought to sustain you. You find that they give no help, and you are left alone like a boy on the ice when it gives way, and he cries for a friend and deliverer, and there is none. (W. Birch.)
