The Fruit: Next is Joy

Joy

 

Definition of Joy:

1. the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation
2. a source or cause of keen pleasure or delight; something or someone greatly valued or appreciated.

 

Joy is the second fruit named in the fruit of the Spirit. Remember the fruit of the Spirit is the result of having God’s Spirit inside. All of the fruit of the Spirit were first created by God and are qualities of God. The fruit of the Spirit are also all inter-related. Love will give you joy, joy will give you peace, it takes faith to live in kindness, self-control leads to gentleness. Joy, the second fruit, can only exist because of love, the first fruit.

 

Zephaniah 3:17 “The LORD your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.”

 

God has joy over us, He delights in doing good for us. I love the fact that He rejoices over us with singing. This is a far cry from the angry God we were taught about in the past. Our God loves us and He wants us to have joy in Him. This doesn’t mean that all of our days will be one big party, but it does mean that although we have to go through issues and losses, the joy of the LORD is still our strength. (Neh.8:10). I have been challenged in the area of trying to maintain God’s joy in my life. I guess the only way to  honestly have joy is to trust that there will be a good outcome in all circumstances. I talked to someone recently about having hope. This person felt that hope was an empty concept and that only hard work would improve a person’s life. I really didn’t know how to convey to him that we had to have hope, life has too many variables to depend on your own hard work alone. Hope is just having a positive expectation of good things happening in your life. What I didn’t realize at that time was that hope actually came from God.

 

Romans 15:13 “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

 

God wants us to have joy in Him at all times and He actually provides the way to have this joy by giving us hope. God is to be our source of joy continually.

 

Psalm 16:11 “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

I want to have the sustained and unconditional joy expressed by the prophet Habakkuk. He expresses that even though his livelihood is diminished and he’s even threatened with the possibility of starvation, he would still rejoice in the LORD.

 

Habakkuk 3:17-18 ”Though the fig tree may not blossom, Nor fruit be on the vines; Though the labor of the olive may fail, And the fields yield no food; Though the flock may be cut off from the fold, And there be no herd in the stalls-18. Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.”

 

We can’t have joy or even hope unless we are willing to trust God, that He has His best in mind for us. It takes patience to get to where He wants us to be. Sometimes when I am going through trials, I actually think to myself, “Where is the joy?” According to Scripture joy always seems to be on the other side of something: the other side of pain, the other side of weeping, the other side of waiting. Note the following:

 

Psalm 30:5 “For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.”

 

John 16:20-21 “Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. 21. A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.

 

Even our Lord Jesus had to suffer before coming into the joy of being back in the presence of the Father:

 

Hebrews 12:2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

 

Not only are we expected to maintain joy during trials, looking forward to the other side of the pain, we are also to rejoice: the action of joy. Most of this rejoicing is to be in active praise to God:

 

Psalm 98: 4-6 “ Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth; Bring forth in song, rejoice, and sing praises. Sing to the LORD with the harp, With the harp and the sound of a psalm, 6. With trumpets and the sound of a horn; Shout joyfully before the LORD , the King.”

 

Psalm 100:1-2 “Make a joyful shout to the LORD all you lands! 2. Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before His presence with singing.”

 

Philippians 4:4 “Rejoice in the Lord always, Again I will say, rejoice!

 

1 Thessalonians 5:16 “Rejoice always”

 

There was a time in my life when I had no respect for “church people.” I would see them pouring into churches on Sunday mornings, dressed in their fancy clothes, carrying their Bibles and their tambourines, and I would think to myself, “it’s just another kind of “partying.”  Back then that was a negative thought for me, but now it’s a positive thought: “It is another kind of “partying.” It’s rejoicing in praise to a perfect Father in heaven, who loved us so much that He sent His Son to die for my sins and He protects me and provides for me every single day!” Am I perfect? No. Does He love me? Yes. The real “action” of joy for the believer is to join in with other believers in rejoicing and praising God. We are social beings, God made us this way. “Having a good time” for the believer is in rejoicing with others within a group.

The people in the Old Testament had a lot of rules and a lot of days that they had to set aside for worship, but these weren’t to be days of somberness, they were to be days of celebration:

Zechariah 8:19  “Thus says the Lord of hosts:

‘The fast of the fourth month,
The fast of the fifth,
The fast of the seventh,
And the fast of the tenth,
Shall be joy and gladness and cheerful feasts
For the house of Judah.
Therefore love truth and peace.’”

 

 There was a time when David was unable to go to the temple because he was hiding in the desert from his enemies. Just by remembering the times he attended worship sustained him in his time of loneliness.

Psalm 42:4 “When I remember these things,
I pour out my soul within me.
For I used to go with the multitude;
I went with them to the house of God,

With the voice of joy and praise,
With a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast.”

Sometimes, in the privacy of our own home, feelings of loneliness and feeling overwhelmed by our problems causes us to “forget our joy.” I find that listening to music will lift my mood. The songwriters and musicians have been blessed with the gift of providing a vehicle for restoring joy. Singing, dancing, and clapping my hands even when I’m alone, causes me to remember the presence of God and the joy He has given me. We can enjoy God’s presence while quietly doing a crossword puzzle, taking a walk or working on a craft project. He said He’d never leave us or forsake us. We can have the joy of His presence at any time.

 Day by Day Joy

Not only are we to actively praise God with singing and music, we’re to rejoice in our everyday living, ever thankful for a chance to make a living and having food to eat. King Solomon examined every part of life, and after coming to the conclusion that it was all “vanity,” summed it up in the following verses:

 

Ecclesiastes 3:22 “So I perceived that nothing is better than that a man should rejoice in his own works, for that is his heritage. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?”

 

Ecclesiastes 5: 18-19 “Here is what I have seen: It is good and fitting for one to eat and drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor in which he toils under the sun all the days of his life which God gives him; for it is his heritage. 19. As for every man God has given riches and wealth and given him power to eat of it, to receive his heritage and rejoice in his labor-this is the gift of God.

 

Ecclesiastes 8:15 So I commended enjoyment, because a man has nothing better under the sun than to eat, drink, and be merry; for this will remain with him in his labor all the days of his life which God gives him under the sun.”

 

In the book of Isaiah, even though it was prophesized that Jerusalem would be sacked and the Israelites would be taken into captivity, they were promised that their ordeal would end and that they would be restored:

 

Isaiah 61: 1-3 “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, Because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good tiding to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound. 2. To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn, 3. To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteous, The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.”

Isaiah 61:7 “Instead of your shame you shall have double honor, And instead of confusion they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they shall possess double; Everlasting joy shall be theirs.”

 

Isaiah 65:22 “They shall not build and another inhabit; They shall not plant and another eat; For as the days of a tree, so shall be the days of My people, And My elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands “

 

So, we’ve seen that God wants us to praise Him with joy, He wants us to enjoy the work of our labor, and He’s promised that even after a terrible ordeal we might have to go through, “everlasting joy shall be ours.” In spite of all this, the most important reason to have joy as expressed by Jesus in the New Testament, is that “our names are written in heaven.” In Luke 10, Jesus had sent out seventy ambassadors two by two into the towns he would be visiting. When the seventy workers returned from their assignment, they were all excited about what they were able to accomplish, even demonic spirits were defeated before them. Jesus responded that their joy was misplaced:

 

Luke 10:20 “Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. Verse 21 goes on to say, “In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit…”

 

There is a time to mourn

 

It’s impossible to talk about joy without considering that in life there is a time to mourn. Solomon wrote in the books of Ecclesiastes and Proverbs that appropriate time is to be given to respectfully mourn the loss of life. Note how the Israelites wept for Moses:

 

Deuteronomy 34:8 “And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days. So the days of weeping and mourning for Moses ended.

 

In Ecclesiastes 3:1 King Solomon wrote, “To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven. Verse 4 says, “A time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance.”

Proverbs 25:20 “Like one who takes away a garment in cold weather, And like vinegar on soda, Is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.”

 

Even Jesus wept (John 11:35) along with the people when he saw the grieving over the death of Lazarus, even though He knew that He would raise Lazarus from the dead.

 

Romans 12:15 “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.”

 

Jesus wept along with the people who wept for Lazarus. We grieve when we lose our love ones and we express our sympathy when we hear of the loss of life of others. The Bible tells us that yes, we suffer grief, we share sympathy and we mourn the loss of life, we are not to become overwhelmed with sorrow as though we have no hope.

1 Thessalonians 4:13 “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. ¹⁴ For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.

So joy, the second fruit named in the fruit of the Spirit is a quality of God, it was given to us by God, He wants us to praise Him joyfully with music and singing, He wants us to rejoice in the benefits we derive from working, He wants us to rejoice because on the other side of any trial, there is joy, and most of all, He wants us to rejoice because our names are written in heaven. He instructs us to mourn at appropriate times but our underlying state should be a state of joy in Him.

 

 

 

Ecclesiastes: A disillusioned king?

Solomon's Kingdom

In 1 Kings 3:9-12,  King Solomon asked for and received wisdom from God and because God was so pleased with this humble request, in 1 Kings 3:13 God said,

"And I have also given you what you have not asked: both riches and honor, so that there shall not be anyone like you among the kings all your days."

King Solomon's wealth was unrivaled, his knowledge was known the world over. 1 Kings 4:32 says,

"(Solomon) spoke three thousand proverbs and his songs were one thousand and five." We know that royals visited him from all over the world to test his great knowledge, including the Queen of Sheba, who according to 1 Kings 10:7 said,

"...Your wisdom and prosperity exceed the fame of which I heard."

1 Kings 5:4-5 tells us that his reign was peaceful and he built the Temple first envisioned by his father, David. Even Jesus, many generations later, talks about Solomon's great splendor in

 Matthew 6:28-29:
"So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin: 29. and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."

Jesus also referred to Solomon in describing Himself, saying, "a greater Solomon is here,"
in Matthew 5:42
^" The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here."

and in Luke 11:31
The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here.

The King Disillusioned?
So this king, honored by God, given a long peaceful reign, untold riches and splendor, and untold wisdom, referred to by Jesus,  wrote the "wisdom book of the bible, the book of proverbs," turned around in Ecclesiastes and said life was all "a vanity" and meaningless. The reader's response is "what ?" I heard a minister say that Ecclesiastes was written later in Solomon's life, after his heart had been turned from God by his many foreign wives. (See 1 Kings, 11:41.) Solomon himself reflected on how life changes as you get older. In Eccl. 12:1, he wrote, "Remember now your creator in the days of your youth, before the difficult days come."

Even though the first two chapters of Ecclesiastes are really "down" portions of scripture, and indeed the tone of the book could be summed up with Eccl. 9:11 when he laments that "time and chance happens to us all," Solomon has not truly given up on encouraging reader to find contentment in God.

In fairness to all the writers of the Old Testament, we have to remember that they didn't have the risen savior as a source of hope. We have to view the "down parts" of the bible through the lens of the hope we have in Christ. It's only while keeping this hope in the forefront of our minds that we can even try to understand how Solomon may have felt when he wrote that life had become boring and repetitive. In Eccl. 1:9, he wrote,

"...that which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun."

In Eccl. 1:14, he goes further, saying, " I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and indeed all is vanity and grasping for the wind." In verse 16, he says all the wisdom he had obtained was "grasping for the wind." Remember he had asked God for that wisdom, and he was world renowned because of his great wisdom, but here he says it was "grasping for the wind." In other words, it was a futile exercise.

He goes on to say he sought all kinds of entertainment, and it ended up being nothing. Then he sought to collect all kinds of things and it ended up being nothing, but near the end of Eccl. 2, specifically in verses 24 and 26 he comes out of his negative reflections to say that there is contentment in God.

Eccl.2:24-26
²⁴ Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God. ²⁵ For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I?  ²⁶ For God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in His sight; but to the sinner He gives the work of gathering and collecting, that he may give to him who is good before God. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind.

It's funny that he ends that statement with, "This also is vanity and grasping for wind." Is it futile because the sinner wasted his time gathering and collecting or is it so unfair that those collections will be given to us who are good before God?


The most popular passage in Ecclesiastes is chapter 3 verses 1-8: Everything Has Its Time

1 To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:

² A time to be born,
    And a time to die;
A time to plant,
    And a time to pluck what is planted;
³ A time to kill,
    And a time to heal;
A time to break down,
    And a time to build up;
⁴ A time to weep,
    And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn,
    And a time to dance;
⁵ A time to cast away stones,
    And a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace,
    And a time to refrain from embracing;
⁶ A time to gain,
    And a time to lose;
A time to keep,
    And a time to throw away;
⁷ A time to tear,
    And a time to sew;
A time to keep silence,
    And a time to speak;
⁸ A time to love,
    And a time to hate;
A time of war,
    And a time of peace

 

Verse 11  says, "He has made everything beautiful in its time."

Eat and Drink and Enjoy Life

 

At four different points in Ecclesiastes Solomon wrote. "...every man should eat and drink and enjoy the goods of all his labor, it is the gift of God."  Perhaps these passages should be the overall tone of the book. Certainly they are more spread throughout the book than the "grasping for the wind passages" with which the book begins.

 

 

Eccl.2:²⁴ Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God.


Eccl.2: ¹² I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice, and to do good in their lives, ¹³ and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor—it is the gift of God.

Eccl. 5: ¹⁸ Here is what I have seen: It is good and fitting for one to eat and drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor in which he toils under the sun all the days of his life which God gives him; for it is his heritage. ¹⁹ As for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, and given him power to eat of it, to receive his heritage and rejoice in his labor—this is the gift of God. ²⁰ For he will not dwell unduly on the days of his life, because God keeps him busy with the joy of his heart.

Verse 20 above implies that too much time for introspection leads to disillusionment in life. Note that Solomon writes "God keeps us busy." Truly it is one of God's gifts to us that we enjoy our families and our blessings.

Eccl. 8:15  So I commended enjoyment, because a man has nothing better under the sun than to eat, drink, and be merry; for this will remain with him in his labor all the days of his life which God gives him under the sun.

Avoid Greed, Avoid Anger, Use Moderation, Don't Become Easily Offended, Clean and Groom Your Clothes and Body, Avoid Immorality
 

 

Later Solomon starts to write the truisms recalling the kinds of things he wrote in the book of Proverbs. He talks about greed: 

 Eccl. 5:10:
He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver;
Nor he who loves abundance, with increase.
This also is vanity.

Prov. 1:19:
 So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain;
It takes away the life of its owners.

Prov.23:4-5
4 Do not overwork to be rich;
Because of your own understanding, cease!
⁵ Will you set your eyes on that which is not?
For riches certainly make themselves wings;
They fly away like an eagle toward heaven.



 He talks about anger:

 Eccl. 7:9:  "anger rests in the bosoms of fools."

Proverbs 14:17

New King James Version (NKJV)

¹⁷ A quick-tempered man acts foolishly,
And a man of wicked intentions is hated

 

Proverbs 14:29

New King James Version (NKJV)

²⁹ He who is slow to wrath has great understanding,
But he who is impulsive^[a] exalts folly

 

Proverbs 15:18

New King James Version (NKJV)

¹⁸ A wrathful man stirs up strife,
But he who is slow to anger allays contention.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Solomon urges moderation in Eccl. 7:16

There is a just man who perishes in his righteousness,
And there is a wicked man who prolongs life in his wickedness.
¹⁶ Do not be overly righteous,
Nor be overly wise:
Why should you destroy yourself?
¹⁷ Do not be overly wicked,
Nor be foolish:
Why should you die before your time?



 and gives practical advice about not being easily offended. Eccl. 7: 21-22.
21 Also do not take to heart everything people say,
Lest you hear your servant cursing you.
²² For many times, also, your own heart has known
That even you have cursed others

 

He also revisits his warnings from the book of proverbs concerning deceitful women. For example, Eccl. 7:26:

 "And I find more bitter than death The woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God shall escape from her, But the sinner shall be trapped by her."

 

Prov. 5:3: "For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil. 4. But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. 5. Her feet go down to death, Her steps lay hold of hell."

 

King Solomon wrote a very interesting commentary concerning how the lack of speedy punishment causes criminals to not fear punishment in Ec. 8:11.
¹¹ Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

 

He  tells us to groom ourselves and take care of ourselves with joy. (This doesn't really sound like a disillusioned king to me.)

 

Eccl. 9:7-8:
7 Go, eat your bread with joy,
And drink your wine with a merry heart;
For God has already accepted your works.
⁸ Let your garments always be white,
And let your head lack no oil.

 

He tells us to speak wisely., a recurrent theme in the book of Proverbs.
 Eccl. 9:17 tells us: 
 ¹⁷ Words of the wise, spoken quietly, should be heard
Rather than the shout of a ruler of fools.

Prov.12:18 "There is one who speak like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise promotes health."

Prov. 15:1 "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger."

"The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem" (Eccl.1:1) may have begun this book with "Vanity of vanities," but the end is not vanity at all. Chapter 12 verses 13 and 14 sums it all up:

¹³ Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:

Fear God and keep His commandments,
For this is man’s all.
¹⁴ For God will bring every work into judgment,
Including every secret thing,
Whether good or evil.