What Is “Fullness of Joy” and Do I Have It?
00:00:00.000 | We have a question today from a listener named Brent.
00:00:02.200 | Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:03.300 | I want to first say thank you for your ministry and for the podcast.
00:00:06.840 | You have helped me grow deeper in my love for the Savior and helped me to know
00:00:10.540 | more of what his word says to us.
00:00:12.500 | Thank you.
00:00:13.580 | On to my question.
00:00:15.260 | I have read countless times in God's word that God is where we
00:00:19.080 | will find our fullness of joy.
00:00:21.080 | But I don't know what fullness of joy looks like practically.
00:00:24.260 | I don't know if I've ever experienced the fullness of joy in God.
00:00:28.060 | What is it and how would I know it when I saw it?
00:00:30.740 | Well, I love questions like this because they make me do what ought to have been
00:00:38.860 | done a long time ago, namely just pause over phrases and words that we use so
00:00:45.220 | often and see if I can identify biblical meanings, definitions, content, so that
00:00:53.620 | we don't just throw around our favorite phrases.
00:00:58.340 | Let me just give a couple of verses where that's a really good phrase,
00:01:02.340 | fullness of joy or joyful.
00:01:04.780 | Psalm 1611 is in my DNA, I hope you make known to me the path of life in your
00:01:15.220 | presence is fullness of joy.
00:01:18.180 | At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
00:01:21.460 | Or John 1511, Jesus says, these things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in
00:01:29.940 | you and that your joy may be full.
00:01:35.140 | So Brent is asking in what sense is our joy full?
00:01:42.580 | What does fullness mean?
00:01:46.340 | Here's one thing it means in the age to come, but not yet in this life.
00:01:52.540 | And then I'll give three things that I think it means even in this life.
00:01:59.660 | So here's the first one that's not complete in this life, but full in the
00:02:05.340 | age to come.
00:02:05.940 | In this life where our own sin and misery and other people's sin and misery compete
00:02:15.100 | to make us sad, we do not have fullness of joy in the sense of having so much joy
00:02:24.620 | that joy has no competitors.
00:02:27.340 | Jesus was a man of sorrows in this life, not just joy, even though he had the
00:02:34.940 | deepest joy of anyone in the universe.
00:02:37.060 | Paul said in 2 Corinthians 6.10, we are sorrowful yet always rejoicing.
00:02:44.420 | So they're right side by side.
00:02:47.860 | No, they're not side by side.
00:02:49.220 | They're contemporaneous.
00:02:51.020 | They're simultaneous.
00:02:52.140 | In Romans 12, he says, weep with those who weep.
00:02:55.940 | And in Romans 9.2, he describes his own heart of pain about his lost Jewish
00:03:03.900 | kinsmen.
00:03:04.380 | I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
00:03:11.100 | Unceasing anguish.
00:03:12.900 | I thought, Paul, you're supposed to rejoice always.
00:03:15.380 | And again, I say rejoice.
00:03:17.100 | So clearly, fullness of joy in this life does not include so much joy or such joy
00:03:26.180 | that all competing emotions are excluded.
00:03:29.820 | We rejoice and we weep even simultaneously.
00:03:33.620 | But in the resurrection, this won't be the case anymore.
00:03:37.500 | Revelation 21.4, he will wipe away every tear from our eyes.
00:03:42.140 | Death shall be no more.
00:03:43.700 | Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former
00:03:47.940 | things have passed away.
00:03:50.500 | So fullness of joy in the age to come means so much joy that all competing
00:03:58.620 | contrary emotions will be gone.
00:04:01.940 | Now, the question then becomes, is there a sense in which we can speak of
00:04:09.300 | fullness of joy in God now in this fallen world of sin and suffering?
00:04:18.220 | And let me suggest three meanings that I think are not nonsense.
00:04:24.300 | They're not a contradiction of what I've just said, and they're not double talk
00:04:28.660 | when we say yes to that question.
00:04:31.060 | Number one, we can be said to have fullness of joy in God if our joy in God
00:04:39.580 | is so full that it outweighs all other competing emotions and overflows in love
00:04:48.620 | to others.
00:04:49.540 | Here's where I'm getting that.
00:04:51.860 | 2 Corinthians 8, verse 2.
00:04:55.340 | "In a severe test of affliction, the Macedonians' abundance of joy and their
00:05:02.340 | extreme poverty have overflowed."
00:05:06.620 | So their abundance of joy have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.
00:05:14.900 | In other words, the joy in God, not in freedom from affliction, not in freedom
00:05:22.140 | from poverty, their joy in God was so full it outweighed affliction, it outweighed
00:05:30.700 | poverty, and it overflowed in generosity.
00:05:34.820 | That is a real fullness, even if there was pain and sorrow along the way.
00:05:41.300 | Second, we can be said to have fullness of joy in God if our joy in God is so full
00:05:51.020 | that we know we have arrived at the end of our quest for satisfaction.
00:05:58.660 | In other words, there may be ups and downs in our level of satisfaction owing to sin
00:06:04.900 | or pain, but we never need to be in doubt that Christ is the end of our search.
00:06:14.580 | We will never leave this fountain to find a more satisfying one.
00:06:19.900 | Here is fullness.
00:06:21.860 | He is fullness.
00:06:23.460 | So Paul says, "I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing
00:06:30.860 | Christ Jesus my Lord.
00:06:32.260 | For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things."
00:06:35.140 | And Jesus says, "I am the bread of life.
00:06:37.820 | Whoever comes to me shall not hunger.
00:06:39.780 | Whoever believes in me shall never thirst, which I take to mean I am the end of your
00:06:45.460 | quest for perfect and full satisfaction."
00:06:49.260 | And don't turn to another.
00:06:51.220 | Stay here.
00:06:52.220 | You will in due time never thirst again.
00:06:55.620 | You have tasted this fullness and it will surely, surely come and remain.
00:07:02.300 | And finally, number three, we can be said to have fullness of joy in God if our joy
00:07:09.220 | in God is so full that it rises to the heights of overflowing gladness in song or other forms
00:07:20.140 | of exuberance.
00:07:21.860 | And I say that because Paul talks about it that way in Ephesians 5.18 where he says,
00:07:28.500 | "Don't get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit."
00:07:36.540 | Be filled with the Spirit.
00:07:39.060 | Addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody
00:07:46.940 | to the Lord with your heart.
00:07:49.100 | Well, what is that?
00:07:50.820 | That's an experience of the Holy Spirit's work that so fills us with himself.
00:07:56.660 | That is his fruit of joy and hope and peace that we burst out in song.
00:08:03.420 | And many of us have tasted this, especially in corporate worship where the Spirit comes
00:08:08.780 | and the hearts of people are lifted to a level of joyful fullness that they cannot keep to
00:08:17.260 | themselves.
00:08:18.620 | So that's a description of the fullness of joy as well as the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
00:08:26.460 | Singing and making melody to the Lord.
00:08:29.180 | Now one last encouraging reminder to all of us who fight with our own sinful incapacities
00:08:36.020 | for joy.
00:08:37.020 | I'm sure everyone who cares about fullness of joy groans under sin and personality brokenness
00:08:47.420 | because we grew up in homes where nobody ever rejoiced, nobody ever sang, there was only
00:08:52.540 | criticism.
00:08:53.540 | We're all broken people and we feel so incapable of sustained intense spiritual joy.
00:09:00.460 | Well, here's the encouragement.
00:09:01.660 | The day is coming when Christ will finally work in us the capacities to enjoy Christ.
00:09:10.500 | That our capacities, not just of ourselves, but of the Father himself enjoying Christ.
00:09:16.340 | And I get that from John 17, 26, where Jesus prays that the love with which you have loved
00:09:24.940 | me, Father, would be in them.
00:09:28.440 | So the love of the Father for the Son would be in them and I in them.
00:09:34.740 | Now that will be the climax of fullness.
00:09:39.500 | And we delight in Jesus, the Son, with the very delight that the Father has in Jesus.
00:09:48.140 | And we will love and delight in the Father with the very love and delight that Jesus
00:09:54.220 | has in the Father, and all of our brokenness and all of our inability will be over, and
00:10:02.660 | fullness will be the right word for that eternal experience.
00:10:08.020 | I love hearing you talk about joy, Pastor John.
00:10:11.020 | Thank you for diving into this question for us, and thank you for listening to the podcast.
00:10:15.820 | For more details or to catch up on old episodes or to subscribe to the audio feed to get the
00:10:20.520 | new episodes as we release them, even to send us a question of your own, go to our online
00:10:25.040 | home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:10:30.060 | We return on Friday, and a listener wants to know how we determine what biblical laws
00:10:34.020 | we should obey, and which biblical laws were fulfilled in Christ.
00:10:39.100 | It's a great question and a very important conversation that we need to have.
00:10:42.780 | That's Friday.
00:10:43.780 | I'm your host, Tony Reike.
00:10:44.780 | We'll see you then.
00:10:45.280 | [END]
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