The Holy Spirit's over-riding joy

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. (Ephesians 2:19–21)

When I was a teen (and not a Christian yet), my dad often lent me the family car so I could take my friends to community dances. We didn’t drink, but we had a lot of fun. One weekend, an uncle happened to be at the event and afterward told my father that I was drinking. In his mind, no one could be having that much fun unless they were full of liquor.

I remember being angry with that uncle. My dad knew me well and didn’t believe the story, but it seemed such an unfair assumption. Later I understood that those who cannot be happy without drinking alcohol would think the same about others. Perhaps this is why those who observed the joy of the first Christians also accused them of being drunk.

Peter defended them. He said, “For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.” (Acts 2:15) This first strikes me as funny. No one gets drunk at 9:00 a.m.? But that is not the point. They had been baptized with the Holy Spirit, and when that happened, He also gave them deep joy, a euphoria that lifted them above all their concerns and fears.

They should have expected it. John the Baptist foretold this would happen, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:11)

Jesus did too. He said it would happen and added that this was a good gift from the Father, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13) Besides the wonder and the joy of it, being filled with the Spirit never leaves God’s people with a hangover.

Yesterday’s sermon was about the Holy Spirit and what it is like to be filled with Him. The term “filled” means that His person and personality overrule mine. That isn’t the best description since this is difficult to describe. It is like being so happy with Jesus and His goodness that nothing else matters. It is having freedom to consider others without thinking about me. It is exuding love, peace, faith and the other “fruits of the Spirit” without trying or even thinking about it. It is having such an infectious joy that others who don’t know this Holy Spirit think you have been drinking.

Being Spirit-filled isn’t limited to joy though. It is also about power. Jesus also said, “Behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49) The Holy Spirit gives a holy fearlessness, an incredible freedom to do and say what God prompts me to do and say. It is like the words of that chorus which come from a verse in Jeremiah: “The joy of the Lord is my strength.”

This joy and power was the experience of the early church. We need more of it in the Body of Christ today.

Cross-bearing and amazing joy

The biblical idea of taking up our cross is often thought to refer to endurance in the difficult circumstances of life. That is, a cranky mother-in-law is a “cross I must bear” or a handicapped child, or anything we cannot change, so must endure and consider our cross.

However, that is not the idea of cross-bearing intended by Scripture. When Jesus bore His cross, He was on His way to die. He was going to make the ultimate sacrifice for the eternal good of others. All through the New Testament, God speaks of sacrifice in terms of giving up what my human self wants in order to glorify God and edify others. The example of Christ is used saying I’m to have His mind, think the way He thought, that I might put others first and die to self.

The Old Testament prefigures the death of Jesus Christ in those sacrificial offerings for sin. A lamb was burned on an altar in place of the sinner or sinners who deserved death for their rebellion and disobedience. While smaller sacrifices were made, the ultimate sacrifices were about blood and death, about yielding all on the altar.

We who believe in Jesus Christ know that we are to be sacrifices. Romans 12 says, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1).

In presenting myself to God, I am making a sacrifice that involves dying to my old life. This happened in salvation where the Spirit of God regenerated the old me and the new person now lives. I think of it as an identity change, sort of like becoming a soldier. However, when God enlisted me, I had no idea how a soldier should think, talk, or behave. I’ve been in boot camp ever since, learning the ways of Christ and how this new person should live.

One of my early lessons was about dying to self. The Bible uses various terms, but this means choices. When push comes to shove, I am to ignore, even put to death, my old ways and obey God. While this is at first difficult, there is great joy in it.

This “obey-die to self-experience joy” described in the New Testament is also prefigured in the Old Testament. One example is how a a wicked king led the people of God astray for many years, then a new king came to the throne and “he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord” and restored worship in the temple . . .

Then Hezekiah commanded that the burnt offering be offered on the altar. And when the burnt offering began, the song to the Lord began also, and the trumpets, accompanied by the instruments of David king of Israel. The whole assembly worshiped, and the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded. All this continued until the burnt offering was finished. When the offering was finished, the king and all who were present with him bowed themselves and worshiped. And Hezekiah the king and the officials commanded the Levites to sing praises to the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the seer. And they sang praises with gladness, and they bowed down and worshiped. (2 Chronicles 29:27–30)

Later, Jesus was the ultimate burnt offering for sin. The Bible says we need to look to Him now, “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” (Hebrews 12:1–2).

After the horror of His great sacrifice for us, Jesus experienced great joy. It was in anticipation of this joy that He endured the suffering and shame of yielding, of saying, “not my will but thine be done” and then willingly experienced the excruciating agony of dying.

Today’s devotional says, “It is not till the burnt offering begins that we ever hear a single strain of music.” The author of this says that every human life has got its cross and we need to distinguish that from only the shadow from the cross. The shadow is something we enter and pass out of, but the cross must be taken up and carried to that place of death.

I know that the cross is about sin, my own and the sins of others that give me pain. A deep question is how I think about these. Do I cling to and cherish my own sin, wanting my own will to be done? Do I hate the sin of others and want to condemn and fling them away from me? The reading says that if those are my choices, there will be no song, only hardening of heart and a growing bitterness.

But if I can take up that cross and consider myself dead to sin, most certainly to my own, but also to the sins of others in that I do not let them affect me personally, my heart experiences the strangest thing — joy. There is harmony, even perfect music that begins only when I yield to the will of God and become that living sacrifice. When the burnt offering begins, so also do the songs of the Lord.

Delighting in God

Sometimes when I am praying, songs bubble up from my heart. It seems that this also is part of what it means to…

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4)

Stephen Charnock says that delight in God will also mean a delight in the things that I ask for. When God is my chief joy, then the things of God are delightful too. Some might get excited about praying for worldly goods or temporary things, yet there is a greater delight in asking for the light of God’s face and for things in the spiritual realm.

I cannot feel dull of heart when I am praying for heavenly mercies and eternal well-being. Just as sunshine and blue sky never become tiresome (at least in my part of the world), neither do I get tired of spiritual blessings. Even though God blesses me countless times, I cannot get enough and long for more. I will repeat some requests for many years, experiencing joy in the asking just as I anticipate joy in the answering. As Charnock says, I can delight in those desires that God has set in my heart and put in my prayers.

Another delight is being overjoyed when I tell God the desires of my heart. I can go through a prayer list and become tired of the routine and repetition, but when I speak from the heart, my emotions are lifted, sometimes so much that I start singing. Charnock says, “The soul desires not only to speak to God, but to make melody to God; the heart is the instrument, but grace is the strings, and prayer is touching them, and therefore the soul is more displeased with the flagging of grace than with missing an answer.”

He is right. I can delight in God’s gifts to me and to others. I can delight in my devotion to Him, but exercising the spiritual life He gives in communion with Him is a more lasting delight. When I return from prayer to my other responsibilities, His delight lingers with me. It gives me peace, strength for the day and keeps my heart focused on spiritual matters and on the Lord.

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. (Isaiah 26:3)

Delighting in God is an expression of trust. I cannot enjoy Him when filled with doubt or frustration at His decisions in my life. I can enjoy Him when my heart is convinced by His Word that He is good and that He loves me and wants the very best for me.