“For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross.” These are some of the immortal words of Hebrews 12:2. Joy is a tantalising topic in the Bible. It is almost always coupled with kind of the opposite—trial, hardship, or suffering in a word—for Bible people have almost always suffered. Or perhaps it is because Bible people are committed to truth—they typically (and are not meant to) sugar-coat reality. And yet, joy—the second-named fruit of the Spirit. Bible people are people of suffering, and of joy.
This one three-lettered word concept
— J O Y —
ought to captivate our imaginations.
How is it even possible that Christ would have
joy set before Him in enduring the Cross?
And how are we to follow Jesus
by being people of His way?
The answer to these questions is in knowing the mission of Christ Jesus. He came precisely to meet the Cross and then to transcend it. He met the Cross and His Passion was for us ALL. He transcended the Cross to be raised on the third day. Defeating death, having defeated the eternal power that sin had over us, then He was raised and returned to the Father in the Ascension, to reign with the Father forever. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit entered the fray and reigns in believers’ hearts to this day here on earth. It is ALL joy!
“For the joy set before Him,
He endured the cross,”
for what was imminently at hand:
G L O R Y
... in so many manifestations of the word.
Jesus’ joy is made complete in our following Him in His joy (John 15:11). Which is sharing in His love. But we don’t always feel so strong in Jesus’ love, and indeed our hearts grow weak frequently. For all manner of reason, our strength fails, and our frequent need is of comfort, and a reminder.
OUR NEED OF STRENGTH
Often when I’m weak, I search and wait expectantly though at times in desperation for the breakthrough that strengthens me. It is never normally a huge redirection in what I’m doing. It is usually small though significant having the mark of God on it. At other times, I realign to the truths above.
We need strength when we are weak. Oftentimes it is only a morsel of strength we need, because when we are weak, we normally respond positively having received even a modicum of encouragement. Strength returns in a moment for the moment. When we are weak, even a little strengthening helps a great deal.
Oswald Chambers says,
“God never gives strength for tomorrow,
or for the next hour, but only for
the strain of the minute.”
As we strain in surrender,
a very paradoxical concept,
strength is added for the moment.
Only God can give the strength that is needed in cases of spiritual weakness. Yet, as an utter paradox, Paul says, “For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).
WHEN I am weak,
THEN I am strong.
Weakness is inevitable.
Strength through weakness.
The biblical way of Paul exists as LIFE for us all, through the rejection of all distraction in preference to worship God in truth.
Weakness ushers us to the foyer of God’s court to experience the presence that replaces weakness with His strength—a strength through which we can do all things (Philippians 4:13).
A quiet, humble strength, that IN God we can do all things. A strength IN weakness. A strength only possible when we are weak. As we accept our weakness. As we learn to smile in that weakness because of the goodness of God that interminably FOR us. As we remember that we ALREADY possess the treasure we seek (see 2 Corinthians chapter 4).
The theme of Paul’s letter to the Philippians is joy—despite the painful circumstances he was in. So we see that Jesus and Paul transacted via the theme of joy in suffering.
PERSONAL EXPRESSIONS & EXPERIENCES OF JOY
What is joy for you and me?
Many things bring or give me joy, just like there are many things that bring or give me pain. And yet, there is a cleaving of these two—joy and pain—in the redeeming of the truer joy.
We must investigate joy WITHIN pain.
It is the secret power of the gospel.
It is a mystery to be unravelled.
When James says, “Consider it pure joy, brothers and sisters, when you face trials of many kinds,” (1:2-4) what on earth does he mean? What this says is there must be the capacity to experience and express the purest joy despite our circumstances, and perhaps even BECAUSE of them in some instances.
The thing that gives me MOST joy is when I experience raw truth amid the company of people—sorrow, grief, anxiety, etc., truthfully told. That is, when a person or people share their weakness bravely.
It’s where we are inadequate
together that God’s power comes.
Inadequacy shared initiates the power of God.
In it is power to open hearts so people can
receive the CARE of God in their suffering.
There is a big difference between being inadequate alone compared with being inadequate together. In truth, we are ALL inadequate. And it’s only when we ‘fess up’ and admit this, being affirmed for our courage, that we stand on the cusp of power. But when we are alone it is all too easy to sink into depression and self-loathing when we are tempted into thinking we are alone—we watch on and THINK that everyone else has all of life together.
There is encouragement in shared suffering.
Personal experiences of joy manifest in bearing
the truth of our suffering with others who relate.
So long as IN our suffering we feel affirmed
for the courage we bear in sharing vulnerably.
The truth is, there is no joy (the biblical kind) without speaking truth to our powerlessness. We must be allowed to BE weak, then we can become strong. Then, in the midst of the assembly, there is great joy because the right heart is borne as a witness to true worship. “... in the Spirit and in truth,” (John 4:23-24) is true worship, and the product of such worship is joy—the joy of the Lord, which is our strength.
THE JOY OF THE LORD IS OUR STRENGTH
In the times of Ezra and Nehemiah—in the 400s before the common era [i.e., before the moment signified by Christ’s birth]—when the people were assembled to hear the reading of the Law, a bizarre yet beautiful thing happened.
They wept!
The people were cut to the heart, convicted because of the truth, of how far from God they were in their performance, how far they were from honouring the Law of the Lord.
This was a GOOD thing!
The people of Nehemiah’s day represented the RIGHT heart—they were a people about to celebrate their freedom, but because of their truth-filled and God-honouring hearts they were overwhelmed with lament for their sin—historical and present. They needed the kindness of God’s Spirit—issued through the encouraging rebuke of Nehemiah—that now was not a time for sorrow but for joy. Such is the grace of God.
“... a broken and contrite spirit
you, God, will not despise.”
—Psalm 51:17
When truth is present on our hearts
—a repentant heart—
God sees that heart and
overwhelms it with His kindness.
THIS is the grace of God!
For many of us, we know the theory of this joy, “the joy of the Lord that is our strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). Such a concept is tantalising, if not alluring. Fascinated by it, we are convicted to discover more about a biblical concept that must surely be comprehensible. Surely it must be!
And it is.
The joy of the Lord IS our strength, simply because it is devoid of all and any of ours. Our ‘strength’ or self-dependence is a blocker to the strength of God.
It is God alone in us, displacing our desire that our wants would be satisfied according to our will with a desire that seeks “first His Kingdom and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). Taking “delight in the Lord” is THE way to getting “the desires of our hearts” (Psalm 37:4) because we receive what our hearts delight in. In committing our way to the Lord we will POSSESS the desires of our hearts—they will at that one time align perfectly.
THE WISDOM OF JOY ESPECIALLY IN SUFFERING
As I have argued compellingly these last three-to-four months—that there is wisdom in forgiveness, and that there is folly in refusing to go there—there is also wisdom in moving beyond guilt to receive God’s kindness to experience joy amid suffering.
Let me say that again:
There is wisdom in moving beyond guilt
to receive God’s kindness
to experience joy amid suffering.
The ancients echo this wisdom
and the heroes of today usher it forth.
“Go THIS way,” they ALL say.
Whenever we think of resilience, we truly are investing all our awareness on the way of resilience, which is to bear with suffering joyfully—yet not joyously. Being joyous might suggest some sadistic pleasure amid the painful circumstance. This is not at all what being joyful in suffering is about.
Being joyful in suffering is about identification. It is us identifying with our brothers and sisters in their suffering as they identify with our suffering in theirs. It is us all identifying with a crucified Saviour. It is us all identifying with a suffering that humbles us in truth, making us kinder, more compassionate, more attuned to love the one in pain. Suffering teaches us empathy.
What this is truly about is CONNECTION,
for there is no better identification than connection.
Human connection is affiliation our souls crave, even as
human connection mirrors connection with the Divine.
Connection is the purpose of life in that it makes the best possible amid the worst—joy in suffering. The gospel makes the best out of the worst—our salvation from Jesus’ death, Jesus’ resurrection from His death, and so on. Connection this way is how all manner of aloneness is mediated through something all our souls were designed to need.
Truly, we can survive anything, and duly thrive,
when we have connection (joy) in suffering.
Think of the immense relief you feel
no matter your circumstances
when another person says,
“Yes, I truly understand you.”
Of all, God understands.
God suffered suspicion, betrayal, rejection,
taunts, scourging, and was crucified.
And yet, “for the joy set before Him, He
endured the cross,” for He (Jesus) knew
He stood on the cusp of victory... for us ALL.
I like how Matthew Levering puts it: “The combination of mourning for sins and rejoicing over God’s mercy exhibits our complete dependence upon God.” And, I would add, that this dependence is salvation and associated discipleship.
Contrition in response to God’s gracious
salvation is the antecedent of the purest joy.
And what comes next is THE best.
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