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‘The joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God.’
1Th_3:9
No one can read St. Paul’s writings without seeing that Christian joy filled the larger part of his life. Outward circumstances might seem against him, yet even when the prison fetters were upon him he could write, ‘Rejoice in the Lord alway’—what, when you are in prison? Yes; for he goes on to add, ‘and again I say, Rejoice.’
I. Religion a thing of joy.—Whenever we look at religion it is a thing of joy. It is a libel on religion to say or think that it is gloomy. I do not say there never will be sadness with religion, but I say there is no sadness in religion. Life is sad. But life without religion is ten thousand times more sad. If we look back at the very beginning of all things, we find that God intended His service to be a service of joy. It was sin that intervened, and that brought in sorrow and death.
II. Joy more effective than gloom.—The same thing is true of life everywhere as well as in religion. Joy is a better instrument for the work of our life than fear and care and anxiety. A cheerful workman is worth a shilling a day more than a workman who is always grumbling over his work. One hopeful heart in any good cause is worth a thousand despondent ones. And if a man desires to be able to say, ‘Let me die the happy death of a Christian,’ he must first learn as the Apostles learned to live the happy life of a Christian. Does any man in his senses believe that this life—and we have all had our share of experience of it—can ever be a happy life without religion? What is your experience? What has been the experience of men and women who have tried to take this world and this life as their portion? Look at the disappointment that marks all the utterances of those who have had nothing better than this life. Take any ten men in your memory that have been about the most successful men that you have known, but without religion. Did you ever know any of them happy? Not one. They have been driven here and there until they had to leave all their fortune and all their wealth.
III. Joy in this present life.—How shall we describe the joy of religion? ‘The kingdom of God is joy,’ says the Apostle. There is no life that is glad and happy but the Christian life. Where he has one thorn he has a garland of roses; where he has one dirge he has ten doxologies; where he has one cloudy day here he has years of golden sunshine from God. If we only knew the joy of religion! We are only just learning it. If we only knew what it was to go to our work to-morrow, and could take with us the joy of pardon on the soul, the sweet assurance of the forgiveness of our sins for Christ’s sake, what a joy it would be! That sets everything right in reference to the past of a man’s life, and it sets everything right in reference to the future of a man’s life. It makes a man glad while he lives, and happy when he dies.
IV. The joy of the life beyond.—But if the present life in the service of God is a thing of joy, what will its future be? We are told something about that future in the Apocalypse, and we get a wonderful glimpse of the joy of that other life. ‘They shall hunger no more … and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.’ Peace is there written on every brow, joy singing in every heart, and Hosannahs rolling from every lip. ‘The Kingdom of God is joy’; and if it is joy now, what will it be then? Joy here, joy there; joy now, and joy for ever.
—
Rev. Canon Fleming.
Illustration‘When you find God calling to Himself a people, the Israelites, there you find that the religious services of the Jews were joyful. All their great national festivals were joyful. The joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off. And when you pass from the Old Testament into the New Testament, instead of this being lessened or done away with, it was increased. St. Paul did not advise men to rejoice in money, for wealth is a shifting sandbank; he did not advise people to rejoice in their health, though that is one of God’s greatest blessings to us, because health is a very precarious thing; he did not advise them to rejoice even in the closest bonds of affection and friendship, because they may be severed by death at a moment. But He says, if you would rejoice in that which is immovable, unchangeable, and eternal, “Rejoice in the Lord.” St. Peter says, “Ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory,” and notwithstanding all the sadness and all the sorrows, all the tribulation, all the persecutions of the early Christians, it is remarkable that they were not only cross-bearers, but joy-wearers.’