How Does God’s Joy Become My Joy?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Welcome back to the podcast.
00:00:06.200 | Well, God is happy in himself, amen.
00:00:09.640 | And God wants us to be happy in himself, amen.
00:00:14.020 | And if you start to apply biblical categories here
00:00:16.320 | to this topic, you begin to ask this question.
00:00:20.040 | How does God's joy become my joy?
00:00:24.200 | That's our question today.
00:00:26.040 | A really good one from a listener named Heather in Chicago.
00:00:29.600 | Hello, Pastor John, thank you for this podcast, she writes.
00:00:32.360 | My question for you is about the nature of who God is
00:00:35.120 | and how he relates to our joy.
00:00:38.020 | Can you explain to me from the Bible,
00:00:40.400 | the person and work of the Holy Spirit
00:00:42.720 | as the love and joy shared between the Father and the Son?
00:00:46.280 | I don't quite understand this
00:00:47.600 | without making his person seem more like a force
00:00:51.200 | or a cosmic energy.
00:00:53.520 | And then how does the person of the Spirit
00:00:55.760 | enable us to experience God's joy within us?
00:00:59.880 | It seems like those two realities connect
00:01:02.280 | to the person of the Spirit and the joy in us,
00:01:06.080 | but it doesn't connect for me, not yet.
00:01:09.120 | Can you help me understand these two dynamics
00:01:11.680 | from the Bible?
00:01:13.360 | - I think it's crucial as we try to understand
00:01:18.320 | our relationship with the Holy Spirit,
00:01:21.460 | that we fix it firmly in our minds
00:01:25.760 | that we are dealing with a distinct person.
00:01:30.460 | Just fix it.
00:01:32.880 | So that, whatever else is uncertain,
00:01:35.620 | don't let that be uncertain.
00:01:37.240 | A person, a divine person,
00:01:40.480 | the third person of the Trinity.
00:01:43.240 | In fact, I've been struck recently,
00:01:45.040 | even before I heard this question,
00:01:47.700 | I've been struck recently how the New Testament
00:01:51.540 | encourages us to enjoy fellowship
00:01:55.220 | with each of the three divine persons of the Trinity.
00:02:00.220 | Not just fellowship with God in the abstract or general way,
00:02:07.060 | but fellowship with God, the Father,
00:02:10.180 | fellowship with God, the Son,
00:02:11.980 | fellowship with God, the Spirit.
00:02:14.240 | For example, 1 Corinthians 1.9 says
00:02:18.260 | that God called us into the fellowship of his Son.
00:02:22.820 | 2 Corinthians 13.14 refers to the fellowship
00:02:28.500 | of the Holy Spirit.
00:02:30.500 | 1 John 1.3 says our fellowship is with the Father.
00:02:35.500 | So we're taught to have fellowship, communion,
00:02:40.240 | personal relations with the Father, the Son,
00:02:44.780 | the Holy Spirit.
00:02:45.620 | And you know what book I would recommend, Tony.
00:02:49.200 | John Owen, "Of Communion with God."
00:02:51.900 | Nobody, I don't think, in the history of the church
00:02:56.380 | has helped people come to terms
00:03:00.180 | with what it means to relate to each person
00:03:03.260 | of the Trinity like John Owen.
00:03:05.740 | I would recommend "Of Communion with God" by John Owen.
00:03:09.660 | Now that implies that the Holy Spirit is a person,
00:03:13.820 | someone you can relate to, talk to,
00:03:19.020 | which is exactly the way Jesus spoke of him.
00:03:22.740 | He says in John 14.26, "The helper, the Holy Spirit,
00:03:27.740 | "whom the Father will send in my name,
00:03:30.960 | "he, and yes, it is masculine,
00:03:34.000 | "not neuter to agree with spirit, pneuma,
00:03:37.780 | "he will teach you all things."
00:03:41.460 | So he is distinct from the Father
00:03:44.360 | because the Father sends him,
00:03:46.220 | and he's a teacher when he comes,
00:03:49.300 | not just a force or gas.
00:03:52.780 | And the apostle Paul picks up on this very reality
00:03:56.300 | of the Spirit as distinct from the Father
00:03:58.820 | and a very personal teacher in 1 Corinthians 2.10 and 13
00:04:03.840 | where he says, "The Spirit searches everything,
00:04:08.780 | "even the depths of God."
00:04:11.560 | What an amazing statement.
00:04:13.640 | "The Spirit searches the depths of God,
00:04:17.360 | "and we impart things of God in words taught by the Spirit."
00:04:22.360 | So just like Jesus, Paul picking it up
00:04:25.920 | and continuing what Jesus taught.
00:04:27.680 | So Jesus and Paul treat the Holy Spirit
00:04:31.080 | not as an impersonal force or power,
00:04:33.860 | but as a person who comes and teaches
00:04:39.840 | and indwells believers and who can be related to personally.
00:04:44.840 | Then consider that Jesus said in John 4.24,
00:04:51.280 | "God is Spirit, and those who worship him
00:04:57.540 | "must worship him in spirit and in truth."
00:05:01.680 | In other words, God is not material,
00:05:06.080 | he's not physical, he is Spirit.
00:05:10.320 | Which means when we say that one of the persons
00:05:15.320 | of the Trinity is the Spirit of God,
00:05:20.080 | we are saying he is the Spirit of a Spirit.
00:05:23.560 | Now, what does that mean?
00:05:26.920 | What does it mean to say the Spirit has a Spirit?
00:05:30.660 | We are not saying he's the image of the Spirit
00:05:34.280 | or the radiance of Spirit or the logos or word of Spirit,
00:05:39.100 | all of which are said about the Son.
00:05:42.740 | So what are we saying when we refer to the Holy Spirit
00:05:47.740 | of God who is himself as Trinity Spirit?
00:05:53.520 | Here's what Edwards says, Jonathan Edwards,
00:05:56.780 | who has helped me so much, quote,
00:06:01.780 | "The word spirit in scripture,
00:06:04.200 | "when used concerning minds or spirits,
00:06:09.200 | "is put for the disposition, inclination,
00:06:15.140 | "or temper of the mind."
00:06:18.260 | For example, when Ephesians 4.27 says,
00:06:21.580 | "Be renewed in the spirit of your mind,"
00:06:26.360 | the disposition or temper of your mind.
00:06:29.400 | So I suppose, I'm still quoting Edwards,
00:06:33.220 | so I suppose when we read of the Spirit of God
00:06:36.820 | who we are told is a Spirit,
00:06:39.560 | it is to be understood of the disposition or temper
00:06:45.140 | or affection of the mind.
00:06:47.900 | Now, the sum of God's temper or disposition is love,
00:06:53.740 | for he is infinite love, 1 John 4, 8, end of quote.
00:06:58.740 | Now, when he says that, we must resist,
00:07:03.260 | we must resist, as Heather pointed out,
00:07:06.080 | the temptation to think of love as a mere force
00:07:09.060 | or power rather than a person.
00:07:11.480 | Edwards is not denying the personhood of the Holy Spirit
00:07:15.620 | when he talks of him as the temper or the disposition
00:07:18.740 | or the love of God.
00:07:19.700 | Edwards is simply trying to put
00:07:21.740 | all the biblical pieces together.
00:07:24.420 | The New Testament doesn't just come out and tell us
00:07:28.060 | in a doctrinal statement, the Holy Spirit is a person.
00:07:31.540 | He doesn't say that,
00:07:32.380 | or the person is the very embodiment of the love of God.
00:07:36.860 | The various statements of the New Testament
00:07:39.060 | point in this direction,
00:07:41.540 | but you have to put the pieces together,
00:07:43.980 | which means we need to be careful.
00:07:46.900 | Oh, how careful, lest we go off the rails
00:07:50.660 | and become heretics.
00:07:52.700 | I think all of our human efforts,
00:07:55.500 | I'd say this in general now about Edwards, myself,
00:07:58.580 | or anybody else, all of our human efforts
00:08:01.580 | to conceptualize the relationships within the Trinity
00:08:05.820 | need to confess that we see through a glass darkly
00:08:09.860 | until we know even as we are known,
00:08:12.860 | which means be careful.
00:08:15.140 | Now, here's another point,
00:08:18.100 | pointer to the question that Heather's concerned about.
00:08:22.380 | 1 John 4, 12 and 13 points to the Holy Spirit
00:08:27.340 | as the love of God in us.
00:08:29.780 | Here's what it says.
00:08:31.380 | If we love one another, God abides in us
00:08:36.380 | and his love is perfected in us.
00:08:41.700 | By this, we know that we abide in him and he in us
00:08:46.060 | because he has given us of his spirit.
00:08:49.220 | So if you put all that together,
00:08:52.580 | God in us, his love in us,
00:08:56.900 | his spirit in us,
00:08:59.180 | all seem to point to the fact
00:09:01.780 | that the way the love of God abides in us
00:09:06.460 | is by his spirit, that is his disposition, his temper,
00:09:10.900 | that is his love in person abiding in us,
00:09:15.020 | by the person of the Holy Spirit.
00:09:17.980 | Now, the piece that remains to be added
00:09:22.100 | for Heather's question is joy.
00:09:24.220 | And this is added by pondering
00:09:28.140 | that the love that God is from all eternity
00:09:33.140 | is not a sacrificial love between the Father and the Son.
00:09:37.340 | They are infinitely beautiful,
00:09:39.140 | infinitely worthy of each other's love,
00:09:43.460 | which means that they delight in each other infinitely.
00:09:47.380 | That's what their love is.
00:09:49.500 | This is my loved son in whom I am totally delighted.
00:09:54.500 | That's my paraphrase of well-pleased.
00:09:59.260 | To say that the love of the Father and the Son
00:10:02.700 | for each other is embodied in the spirit
00:10:07.060 | is to say that the spirit in his essence
00:10:10.460 | is God's joyful love, loving joy in person
00:10:15.460 | because God's loving from eternity
00:10:19.620 | has been his enjoying from eternity.
00:10:23.220 | That's how the persons of the Godhead
00:10:26.260 | have related to each other.
00:10:28.140 | They're not disappointed.
00:10:29.540 | They don't have to overcome any obstacles
00:10:32.020 | to delight in each other.
00:10:33.720 | So when Jesus says, "My joy I give to you," John 15, 11,
00:10:39.060 | or when he says, "Enter into the joy of your master,"
00:10:43.660 | Matthew 25, 11, he is welcoming us
00:10:47.640 | into the fullest experience of the Son's love for the Father.
00:10:52.640 | And it seems right then to say this is experienced
00:10:58.820 | by being filled with the Holy Spirit,
00:11:02.640 | who is the very person who is the love of God
00:11:07.300 | and the joy of God.
00:11:08.780 | Paul speaks in 1 Thessalonians 1, 6
00:11:12.380 | of the joy of the Holy Spirit,
00:11:15.980 | the joy which the Holy Spirit gives by coming himself
00:11:20.980 | to live in us as the very love and joy of God.
00:11:25.340 | So I pray that God would help you, Heather,
00:11:30.340 | and all of us, as we humbly and carefully
00:11:36.120 | try to faithfully put the pieces
00:11:38.480 | of God's precious word together.
00:11:41.600 | - Amen.
00:11:42.440 | Yeah, these are some profound pieces, too,
00:11:44.420 | some of the most precious pieces, precious realities
00:11:48.760 | that we can ever try to wrap our brains around.
00:11:51.200 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:11:52.880 | And thank you for joining us today.
00:11:54.080 | If you want to ask Pastor John,
00:11:56.320 | email your questions to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:12:01.080 | Well, we will be back next week
00:12:04.040 | to look at the challenges posed by our own personal doubt.
00:12:08.160 | Can we struggle with doubt
00:12:09.240 | and experience joy in God as well?
00:12:12.120 | That's Monday.
00:12:13.160 | Thursday, we look at how to fight off the inner skeptic
00:12:15.780 | when we have doubts about what we read in the Bible.
00:12:18.340 | Monday, can I doubt God and have joy in him?
00:12:21.920 | Thursday, fighting off the inner skeptic
00:12:24.840 | in our Bible reading.
00:12:26.480 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:12:27.520 | We'll see you next week.
00:12:28.720 | (upbeat music)
00:12:31.300 | (upbeat music)
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