The Radical Impact of Joy

For I am not ashamed of the gospel,^[a] because it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. Romans 1:16

 

During my first year as a true convert (I was a false convert for 12 years, my testimony is also on the Acts 27blog if you haven’t seen it). I went to East Timor as a way for me to praise God for what He’d given me. He gave me a job when I knee deep in depression. But above all, He revealed Himself to me when I realised I had nothing and He had stripped away everything in my life. East Timor was a difficult place to live in, we (the missionaries) often had bush rats and snakes running into our little homes. The homes were nothing special, they were no bigger than a typical single door garage. I slept on a bare concrete floor with a roll out mat, I ate rice, biscuits and spam for two weeks. It was one of the hardest things I’ve done but I praised God that He gave me the strength to complete this mission.

 

Each morning as we walked up to the site where we would help build a house for the Sutulan’s, we would sing hymns and praise God in prayer, except for one morning. There was one morning that we didn’t do this; to be honest it made me a little uncomfortable the whole day. And just as the last bit of concrete had been poured in and smoothed out, the rain came over and poured down heavily so that we couldn’t use the concrete at all. I said to myself “we didn’t pray” and I truly believe to this day that is why the rain came down at that particular time. This was rain season, so to be able to pour a concrete slab during this time required God answering prayer! The next day I made sure that we dedicated the time to prayer and praising God. And the Lord answered our prayer, He kept the rain off which was a blessing because we would not have been able to finish the house if it weren’t for His sovereign hand.  

I believe in the power of God not because God held the rain off (although that was an answer to prayer) but because of the gospel and its radical power to change lives so that others make seek Him and put Him first above all things! This is often why I become angry with churches like Hillsong and seeker friendly churches. Your faith in Christ does not rest on the size of a church, whether or not that church has a big stage and good lighting. A big church in it of itself is not a bad thing, for example The Metropolitan Tabernacle in London was considered quite a large church for its time. But there is something wrong with a person’s Christianity if their faith comes through the grasp of a ‘good time’ rather than the grasp of true joy.

Take the example of Job in Job 1:20-21 Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head.^[d] He fell to the ground and worshiped, ²¹ saying:

Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will leave this life.^[e]
The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.
Praise the name of Yahweh.

Job had extraordinary joy to praise God in the midst of his turmoil and suffering. Greater joy comes from knowing God, a full surrender to God! That is often why many Christians struggle with the idea of seeker friendly churches because they often try to muster a false sense of joy. Real joy does not come from whether or not you’re happy, I can guarantee that Job was suffering, the man shaved his head and tore his clothes. Yet the joy that he had in his Lord was immovable even if Satan himself had been given the keys to Job’s life. That is true joy that is the joy that we should seek, that we should know and understand. Let us learn from Job and test these churches with scripture. Let us ask ourselves the question “is this real joy that I have?” Do not rest on experience; rest on the knowledge of God! Do not rest on happiness for happiness is a fleeing emotion! True joy is found at the cross, knowing what Christ has done. He died for you Christian, should your cup overflow with a false sense of joy? I guarantee that when you know the joy of God, it wouldn’t matter if you were sleeping on a concrete floor for the rest of your life, you have joy in Him because He completes you with a knowledge of the gospel!