How Much Joy Can We Really Expect in This Life?
00:00:00.000 | Well, how much joy can we expect to get in this life?
00:00:08.000 | It's a great question for you, Pastor John, who joined us over the phone today.
00:00:12.840 | The question comes from Cameron in Northern Ireland.
00:00:16.160 | "Dear Pastor John, I'm reading your book Desiring God, Meditations of a Christian Hedonist.
00:00:21.840 | There your description of the three stages of worship have struck a chord in my heart.
00:00:26.400 | I know the lowest stage well, where I feel deep sorrow for not being able to worship
00:00:31.080 | my Lord as I should.
00:00:32.600 | I'm also acquainted with the second stage of spending much of my devotional time in
00:00:36.960 | a state of intense longing for the full joys of God's presence.
00:00:41.720 | However, I find myself only rarely able to experience the unbounded joy and satisfaction
00:00:47.560 | of worship which you describe, leaving me in what feels like a state of perpetually
00:00:52.220 | unsatisfied longing for God.
00:00:55.340 | How much of the Christian life is marked by an unsatisfied longing for joy that we will
00:01:01.840 | not fully find in this life?"
00:01:04.640 | This question is so important as a clarification of what Christian hedonism really looks like
00:01:13.160 | in this life.
00:01:15.360 | I know that I might easily give the impression when I speak of God's purpose for us to delight
00:01:23.120 | in God above all things that this might mean uninterrupted full satisfaction in this world
00:01:31.120 | while we keep our eyes on God.
00:01:33.820 | But from Scripture, from the lives of great saints, from our own experience, we just know
00:01:41.000 | that's not the case.
00:01:43.080 | So when Cameron says, "I find myself only rarely able to experience the unbounded joy
00:01:53.140 | and satisfaction of worship which you describe," my response is, "Such experiences of unbounded
00:02:01.520 | joy in this fallen world of sin and misery will always be rare."
00:02:09.960 | I hope he's not too discouraged by that.
00:02:11.960 | I don't mean that real and deep joy will be rare, but that the kind of joy that feels
00:02:20.720 | unbounded, that is unmixed with sorrows and the limitations of the sinfulness of the world,
00:02:29.280 | such a joy will be rare.
00:02:32.960 | And I say that even though I know that Jesus said in John 6 35, "Whoever believes in me
00:02:42.120 | will never thirst."
00:02:45.800 | Now that could be taken to mean that the satisfaction we experience when we come to Jesus never
00:02:53.000 | has any limit or frustration, but only constant and perfect contentment.
00:03:00.160 | We never thirst.
00:03:02.920 | I don't think that's what Jesus means.
00:03:06.400 | I think he means first that when you find Jesus, you have come to the end of your quest
00:03:17.120 | for satisfaction.
00:03:18.280 | Jesus is the living water and there is nothing better in the universe and nothing that will
00:03:27.360 | satisfy more.
00:03:29.280 | So the quest is over.
00:03:31.860 | You are home.
00:03:33.640 | And the second thing I think it means is that in due time, all frustrations of the fullest
00:03:41.320 | satisfaction will be over.
00:03:43.360 | They'll be overcome in the resurrection when we sin no more and deal no more with misery
00:03:50.760 | and suffering in this world.
00:03:52.740 | And in the meantime, we have tasted and we know that Jesus is all satisfying.
00:04:01.120 | We know he is.
00:04:02.240 | That's what we've tasted.
00:04:04.760 | Sometimes that satisfaction goes very deep and very high and seems to be all encompassing.
00:04:12.760 | More often, it seems embattled and compromised by competing sorrows and miseries.
00:04:22.240 | And there are a lot of reasons for that.
00:04:25.160 | And it might be good just to mention them so that it doesn't feel like we're weaseling
00:04:30.440 | here.
00:04:31.440 | Like really, there is there is there's a there's joys we should know.
00:04:34.320 | And it's really our fault if we could have them if we just believed more.
00:04:39.560 | And of course, that's true.
00:04:40.560 | There's always more to be had.
00:04:41.960 | But there are real reasons why we will not experience that kind of unbounded, unembattled
00:04:50.320 | fullness in this life.
00:04:51.920 | Number one, in Romans 5, 2, Paul says, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
00:04:59.280 | So our present joy is not the full and complete joy of present glory, but an anticipation
00:05:08.360 | of future glory, a foretaste of future glory.
00:05:12.520 | And Jesus in Hebrews 12, 2, endured the cross for the joy set before him on the cross.
00:05:23.100 | There was joy, I dare say, in the trustworthiness of his father as a faithful judge who wouldn't
00:05:31.880 | give him up to Sheol.
00:05:34.300 | But it was all but snuffed out by the horror of God's judgment.
00:05:41.400 | But the joy set before him sustained him all the way.
00:05:44.860 | And that's what it does for us.
00:05:46.220 | We tasted now, but we have a hope of the joy of the glory of God.
00:05:51.200 | Number two, Romans 12, 15 says, we weep with those who weep and we rejoice with those who
00:05:56.860 | rejoice.
00:05:57.860 | And in this age, there always be weepers.
00:05:59.660 | And so our joy is always mixed with the sorrow of empathy.
00:06:04.180 | Third, Paul himself showed that he was an example of this in Romans 9, 2, where he said
00:06:14.060 | he was in constant anguish over his lost Jewish kinsmen, even though he said that we should
00:06:22.260 | always rejoice.
00:06:25.300 | Number four, in fact, he described for us what that looks like in 2 Corinthians 6, 10,
00:06:31.700 | where he says, sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.
00:06:35.140 | In Paul's mind, the Christian life is always rejoicing and often, perhaps simultaneously,
00:06:43.780 | always sorrowful.
00:06:46.140 | Five, then you have the psalmists, right, who cry out continually for renewed joy to
00:06:55.580 | God as though it's not constant, as though it has to be made new.
00:06:59.960 | Like Psalm 90, verse 14, "Satisfy me in the morning with your steadfast love."
00:07:06.060 | Well, why would he cry out that if he was already satisfied?
00:07:10.660 | Or Psalm 51, 12, "Restore to me the joy of my salvation."
00:07:15.820 | Restore, meaning it's gone, something took it away.
00:07:20.140 | And so even the psalmists, at their best, are modeling for us that joy is something
00:07:27.580 | we fight for and cry for in its fullness every day.
00:07:33.860 | Sixth, Paul describes the whole Christian life as one of progress, not having arrived.
00:07:41.660 | We're being changed, he says, from one degree of glory to another in 2 Corinthians 3, 18.
00:07:47.420 | And so if we're being changed from one degree of glory, that means we're seeing new degrees
00:07:53.480 | of glory, we're being conformed with new degrees of glory, and there are fresh experiences
00:07:58.660 | of joy that we didn't have before.
00:08:01.560 | And finally, John says that when the kingdom finally arrives, God will wipe away every
00:08:07.460 | tear from our eyes, Revelation 21.
00:08:10.300 | So clearly, until that time, our joys are going to be mingled with tears.
00:08:16.040 | In fact, one old saying has it, I think it's an old American Indian proverb that says,
00:08:22.260 | if the eye had no tears, the soul would have no rainbow, which is just one of the ways
00:08:29.020 | that God makes our tears now serve our joy now.
00:08:35.140 | There are kinds of joys we would not know without tears.
00:08:40.720 | So we need to be realistic about the fullness and completeness of joy in this life.
00:08:48.980 | In fact, it will never be as full as it will be in heaven when it's no longer mixed with
00:08:56.060 | sin and misery.
00:08:57.980 | Let me add one more thing.
00:09:00.220 | In answer to the question, "Okay, how then do we make it as full as it can be?"
00:09:07.260 | Jesus says, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
00:09:13.860 | There's a blessing, a happiness, a joy that comes with purity of heart because of seeing
00:09:19.780 | God, and seeing God is certainly the key to having our joy be as full as it can be.
00:09:27.260 | Yeah, and that's a day I can hardly imagine right now, a precious hope for our daily living,
00:09:34.380 | to see God.
00:09:36.260 | And absolutely impossible to put words to what that will be like.
00:09:39.500 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:09:40.660 | Well, at our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn, you can explore all of our 1,250+ episodes
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00:10:02.180 | Well, how do we cling to God when our lives are absolutely easy and everything is going
00:10:09.220 | smoothly?
00:10:10.620 | That's a great question, and it leads us into a conversation this summer with our next guest
00:10:16.700 | on the podcast, hip-hop artist and poet Jackie Hill Perry.
00:10:21.340 | That's on Friday when we return.
00:10:22.500 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:10:23.500 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:10:25.220 | We'll see you then.
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