What Do We Mean By Joyful?

What do we mean by joyful when we say that we are joyfully reformed? I’m glad you asked.

Recently I was asked if joy is a choice. Perhaps it is, but that’s not exactly how we’re thinking about it. Joy seems to be more of a right response for the Christian as we understand it. Such as when Isaiah 12:6 says, “Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel” (ESV). Singing for joy is a response to the greatness of God. Let me show you what I mean.

In Matthew 5:11-12 Jesus says, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (ESV). Here He calls Christians, true Christians who so exemplify the beatitudes that they are persecuted for it, to rejoice and be glad. That is, to have overflowing heartfelt joy. Why? Not because of persecution, but because our reward is great in heaven. And what reward is that? According to what Jesus says just before it’s that in Christ we have the Kingdom of Heaven, eternal comfort, a guaranteed inheritance, perfect righteousness and satisfaction, eternal mercy, the Beatific Vision, and full adoption into the Family of God as sons of God. In other words, true Christians are true citizens of the Kingdom of God and true members of the Family of God, who are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ of heaven and earth. And in view of that great reward, a reward that Christ has won for us, we are called by Christ to rejoice and be glad, even when we’re persecuted. And really, it seems as though Jesus is saying that we’re to rejoice and be glad especially when we’re persecuted, because our persecution acts as a sign of assurance that we are in Christ and that He is in us, since after all, they persecuted Him first. 

So, you see, in response to Christ and all that He grants in salvation, we are to rejoice and be glad. More importantly, in response to who Christ is, what He has done, is doing, and will do, and the fact that every true Christian will glorify Him and enjoy Him forever, we glorify Him and enjoy Him now… we rejoice and be glad now. This other-worldly joy that we have—the joy of the Lord, the joy of our salvation—seems to be directly tied to Jesus saying we are salt and light in the next passage. As Ethan pointed out in his recent post on The End For Which God Created The World in our sin we are bent in on ourselves. “Yet, when we behold the glory of God, we see something so good, so delightful, that it pries our wills, desires, and eyes away from ourselves and toward the one we were made to love and delight in.” In other words, when, by God’s grace, we see the truth of who Christ is and what He’s done in the gospel, our love, our desire, our joy become Christ-centered instead of self-centered. And this makes us stand out as salt and shine out as light in a world full of darkness and decay.

Peter said that we Christians, “are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that [we] may proclaim the excellencies of him who called [us] out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9 ESV). Here he points us to the wonder of our salvation and who we are in Christ, and then says that we are to proclaim (ἐξαγγέλλω exangellō to declare, proclaim, to tell forth, to publish, to celebrate…) Christ’s excellencies (ἀρετή aretē goodness, excellence, virtue, uprightness, beauty…) who called us into His marvelous (θαυμαστός thaumastos marvelous, wonderful, remarkable, glorious…) light. In other words, we are to be so amazed and captivated by the grace of Christ and His glorious beauty that we celebrate, publish, and proclaim just how gloriously beautiful He is. That sounds a lot like what Jesus called us to: to rejoice and be glad, come what may, because of our great reward in heaven… namely, Jesus Himself. 

Later Peter says that we are to always be ready to give a defense if someone asks us for a reason for our hope (1 Peter 3:15). By hope he means the sure and certain expectation of full and final salvation: all of our enemies put under Christ’s feet, the return of Christ, resurrection glory, heaven and earth joined together, and the full enjoyment of our great inheritance in Christ. And in light of what Peter means by hope here I believe he’s linking this to the overflowing joy he spoke of in 2:9. Peter assumes that Christians are so joyful and hopeful that the world will have some questions. And this hope and joy seem to be normal for Christians in the New Testament. Paul said in Philippians 1:18 that he will rejoice, and then says in Philippians 1:20-21 that it is his eager expectation and hope that Christ will be honored, because for him to live is Christ, meaning he lives to glorify and enjoy Christ, and to die is gain, meaning then he’ll get to glorify and enjoy Christ all the more because he’ll be with Him. He goes on to say in Philippians 1:23 that his desire is to be with Christ because Jesus is far better. Far better than what? Everything! As he says in Philippians 3:8, he willingly counted all things as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus. In other words, Jesus is of surpassing worth, He’s better than everything. And because that’s true, all of Paul’s hope and joy were in Christ. 

Now, perhaps you’re thinking this hope and joy, this joyful optimism is only for the Apostles. But that simply isn’t the case. Which is why we’re commanded to rejoice in so many places, including Philippians 4:4. In Hebrews 10:32-36 for instance, ordinary Christians are able to joyfully accept the plundering of their property because in Christ they had something/Someone better and more abiding, in Christ they had a confident and great reward. In other words, they had joyful optimism, they had hope and joy in Christ. This is the same idea the author illustrates through Moses in Hebrews 11:25-26, when he says that Moses chose to “be mistreated with the people of God [rather] than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. [Why? Because] He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward” (ESV). Again, Jesus is of surpassing worth, He’s better than everything. He is our great cause to rejoice and be glad. Because of who He is, what He’s done, is doing, and will do, no matter what comes our way, we have cause for hope and joy.

“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:17-18 ESV). This is what we mean by joyful. Notice, Habakkuk does seem to make the choice to be joyful, but his joy is in the LORD, in the God of his salvation, and no doubt in his salvation itself as well. His joy is a response to the Lord. And all of that is rooted in God’s grace. He is able to rejoice and be glad, come what may, because of his great God and the salvation He has graciously provided. And so are we Christian… all because of Jesus. 

The puritan George Swinnock rightly said, “Let a godly man enjoy his God, in whom he places all his joy and happiness, [and] he is well, for he has all. According to the degree of our enjoyment of God is the degree of our happiness.” And that’s what we’re getting at when we say that we are Joyfully Reformed. We are happy Calvinists. We’re reformed, but we’re not angry about it; on the contrary, we take great joy in our sovereign God. And you should too. For He is good, and He works all things together for our good.

In Romans 8:28 Paul reminds us, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (ESV). This may not always seem to be the case, but that’s because we so often lose sight of the bigger picture. The bigger picture is the glory of Christ, the One who is of surpassing worth, and His reconciling all things to Himself. In Romans 8:28 good means being made more like Jesus and being with Jesus forever. And so, like Habakkuk, even when everything seems to be falling apart, we can take joy in the God of our salvation. In pain and pleasure, in poverty and prosperity, we can rejoice because God is working for our good. As the puritan Thomas Watson put it, “If it is good for us, we shall have it; if it is not good for us, then the withholding of it is good.” And that’s true even of hardship, persecution, and suffering. As Joseph said in Genesis 50:20, what others may mean for evil, God means for good. And not just our good, but the ultimate good of final salvation and the glory of Christ. Indeed, “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6 ESV). God is working, “according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10 ESV). And as Job 42:2 says, God can do all things, and no purpose of His can be thwarted. So, let that surety, that certain hope that comes from our sovereign God and His great plan of salvation stir you to great optimistic joy. Join us in being Joyfully Reformed.