A People of Joy

What comes to mind when we say that we are joyful? If somebody says they are a joyful person, filled with exuberant joy, what do you picture? Someone who is always smiling, always optimistic, never speaking negatively? Someone willing to help and serve, who cannot contain their joy, and so that joy manifests itself in acts of service?

That’s good. It’s infectious. There’s nothing like a joyful person, is there? I think of Paul, in his letters, talking about a man named Epaphroditus. “He refreshes my soul,” Paul says. There are certain people who are simply refreshing to be around. They’re not downers; they’re uppers. They make you want to be around them. You can’t wait to see that person.

Some people are the opposite. You see them in the aisle at Walmart, and you’re like, “Let’s duck, dip, and dodge in the other direction”—if you’ve watched Dodgeball. With other people, you think, “Man, I need to talk with them, because they’re going to encourage me.”

But are joyful people necessarily always happy people? I think there’s a distinction between joy and happiness, don’t you? I like to think of happiness as being based on happenings or happenstance. If things are going well—if I’ve got money in the bank account, the check-engine light isn’t on in the car, and the kids are actually listening for once—I might be happy.

But what happens when none of those things are true? Then we need a deep-seated joy, right? A joy that is a foundation, one that doesn’t move or change.

The Bible says in Nehemiah 8:10, “The joy of the Lord is my strength.” Nehemiah was a hard book; Nehemiah had a tough assignment. He was rebuilding the walls around Jerusalem. He had these men named Sanballat and Tobiah who mocked him, made up lies about him, tried to befriend him, and tried to distract him. They came against him in every possible way to keep the walls from being built.

But Nehemiah said, “We’re not going to stop building. If we have to fight you, we’ll fight you, but we’re going to continue building.”

What kept Nehemiah going through that hardship and trial, through being betrayed, lied about, and opposed? It was the joy of the Lord. And guess what happened? Fifty-two days later, they completed the entire wall around the city of Jerusalem. The joy of the Lord was their strength.

What will get us through life? The joy of the Lord. What’s going to make our sojourn infectious? What’s going to make other people want what we have? It’s the joy of the Lord.

Sometimes that is going to look like coming into a service when we’re not happy. Sometimes we may not be feeling okay, and that’s okay, because we know we have other people who are going to be there for us—a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen. We have people who possess this deep-seated hope in God, and it’s going to help us through those rough patches, right?

We’re going to be able to lift our voices joyfully and sing, praise, pray, and preach the Word together. The joy of the Lord will be poured out from heart to heart. That’s what joy looks like: a deep, settled contentment in God, in who He is and what He has done for us.

So we want to be a joyful people. All through the Psalms, we are told to rejoice in the Lord, to sing praises and psalms. Rejoice in the Lord—and again I say, rejoice.

We, of all people—those who have been redeemed from the pit, those who have been made sons and daughters of God and given a heavenly inheritance—we, of all people, have a reason to rejoice. We, of all people. In fact, we’re the only people who have a reason to sing, lift our voices, and be joyful. So let’s be a joyful people.

Join me now for a prayer of supplication.

Father, we thank You for Your joy. Lord, as Isaiah says, You’ve traded our garments of mourning and weeping, clothing us with garments of praise. You’ve robed us in the festal garments of Your righteousness, allowing even us to experience joy.

But we understand the difference between joy and happiness, Lord. Sometimes Your people are not happy. Sometimes Your people are betrayed, lied about, and persecuted. But, Lord, we know that You will never leave us nor forsake us, and we know that You work all things for Your glory and our good.

So, Lord, we pray that we would be people of joy, that we would live in such a manner that other people could look at us and say, “I want what they have. Can you tell me why you have joy and hope in this situation? How can you still be smiling after this diagnosis? How can you still sing after what they did to you?”

And we can say, “Well, it’s not me. The joy of the Lord is my strength.”

Let us be a joyful people. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.