The Joy of Jesus

Text: John 15:11; 17:13

Series: Restoration Sermons

Date:

Speaker: Ed Rangel

Location: Waupaca Church of Christ

Bible Version: NASB 1995

Sermon Type: Expository

Learning Objectives

By the close of this lesson the hearer should be able to:

1. Explain why Jesus is not primarily a figure of sorrow and why the New Testament is, at its core, a book of joy.
2. Understand why joy and sorrow are not mutually exclusive — how a great soul can hold both simultaneously.
3. Identify the specific grounds of Jesus's joy — particularly that it was not based on external conditions.
4. Name the sources of Christian joy that belong to believers who are in Christ (John 15:11; 17:13; Gal. 5:22; Phil. 4:4).
5. Distinguish between happiness (external-condition-dependent) and joy (grounded in Christ's presence and his finished work).

Thesis

Jesus was "a man of sorrows" — and he was also a man of deep, unshakable joy. The New Testament does not present these as contradictions. It presents them as dimensions of the same great soul.

Burden

The church has a long tradition of depicting Jesus primarily through his suffering — the stations of the cross, the agony of Gethsemane, the darkness of Golgotha. These are not distortions; they are true and necessary. But they are not the whole picture. The same Jesus who said "My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death" (Mark 14:34) also said "These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full" (John 15:11). He had a joy to give. He said so directly. That means he had it first.

Introduction

The Christian faith has been caricatured for centuries as a religion of gloom — a system of renunciation, prohibition, and endured suffering, promising eventual relief. The point of this sermon is that this caricature gets Jesus wrong. His personality was not one-dimensional. He who wept at Lazarus's tomb also attended weddings and banquets and was accused by his opponents of being "a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners" (Matt. 11:19) — which is to say, a man who enjoyed festive company. We never see him in his fullness till we see all phases of his character.

The argument of this sermon moves outward: from the New Testament as a whole (Section I), to the compatibility of joy and sorrow in the character of Jesus (Section II), to the grounds of his joy (Section III), to its transmission to his followers (Section IV).

I. The New Testament: A Book of Joy

The New Testament opens with a song and closes with a chorus. In between, it tells the story of the most joyful news in human history.

1. Tragedy is present. The crucifixion of Jesus, the martyrdom of Stephen (Acts 7), the death of James (Acts 12) — these are real, not glossed over. The New Testament does not pretend that following Christ insulates a person from suffering or loss.
2. Yet it opens with joy over the birth of Jesus. The angels' announcement to the shepherds is "good news of great joy which will be for all the people" (Luke 2:10-14). The Incarnation is an occasion of cosmic joy, not solemnity.
3. It closes with a superb picture of multitudes singing. Revelation's closing chapters are full of song — "Worthy is the Lamb" (Rev. 5:11-12); "Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God" (Rev. 19:1). The last word of Scripture is joy at the consummation of all things.
4. Christianity is the only religion that has great songs. The Christian tradition has generated more great music than any comparable religious movement, because it has had more reason for it. The music emerges from the joy.
5. Behind the New Testament is a joyous personality, Jesus. The documents reflect their subject. The New Testament's energy, its confidence, its unquenchable forward momentum — these are not the qualities of a movement organized around despair.

II. Joy and Sorrow Are Not Antagonistic

A common mistake is to treat joy and sorrow as occupying opposite ends of a spectrum, so that more of one means less of the other. Jesus refutes this by being fully both.

1. Jesus was "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Isa. 53:3). This is not a metaphor. He wept at Lazarus's tomb (John 11:35). He was "deeply grieved" in Gethsemane (Mark 14:34). In John 12:27 he said, "Now My soul has become troubled." These are genuine expressions of genuine suffering.
2. He is too often pictured only from his cries of agony. When the suffering is treated as the whole story, Jesus becomes a figure of unrelieved gloom — a martyr figure whose personality had no other dimension. This is an incomplete portrait.
3. Joy and sorrow arise from the same capacity of feeling. A person who feels nothing feels neither sorrow nor joy. The capacity that enables deep sorrow also enables deep joy. Jesus's sorrow was real because his love was real; his joy was real because his relationship with the Father was real.
4. The ocean has room for calm and tempest; so has a great soul. The ocean does not stop being an ocean in the storm or in the calm. A great soul does not stop being great under sorrow or lose its sorrow in joy. Jesus held both — not because he was divided, but because he was capacious enough for both.

III. Joy Not Based on External Conditions

This is the theological heart of the sermon. Jesus's joy was not produced by pleasant circumstances — it was grounded in something underneath circumstances.

1. Under the shadow of the cross, Jesus said, "Be of good cheer" (John 16:33). The discourse of John 14-16 was delivered on the night he was betrayed. His table companions were confused, frightened, and about to scatter. He told them to have courage because his own peace was not based on what was about to happen in the next twelve hours.
2. Repeated to Paul while he was a prisoner (Acts 23:11). "Take courage" — the Lord said it to Paul the night after his arrest in Jerusalem, with two years of Roman custody still ahead of him. The joy the Lord gives does not wait for release before becoming available.
3. Jesus "endured the cross, despising the shame, for the joy set before Him" (Heb. 12:2). He endured the cross for joy — the joy on the other side of the cross was the motivation for enduring it. The cross was not the end; it was the cost of the joy. He was not dragged to Golgotha. He went there in pursuit of something that made the going worthwhile.
4. He triumphed in joy over death. The resurrection is the foundation of Christian joy because it is the demonstration that death is not the final word. He is not in the tomb. That fact is the source from which every other Christian joy flows.

IV. Christians Should Have That Joy

Jesus's joy is not his private possession — it is transferable. He said so explicitly.

1. "My joy may be in you" (John 15:11). The possessive is emphatic: My joy — the joy that is in him, the joy that held through Gethsemane and the cross — this is what he is offering to give. Not a pale imitation; the real thing.
2. "Your joy may be made full" (John 17:13). The high-priestly prayer asks that the disciples' joy be complete — not partial, not intermittent, not conditional on the resolution of external problems, but full.
3. Joy is the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). The Christian's joy is not self-generated — it is a fruit that the Spirit produces in the one who abides in Christ. It is supernatural in origin, though it is real in experience.
4. "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!" (Phil. 4:4). Paul wrote this from prison. "Always" — not when circumstances are favorable; always. The repetition is emphatic — he knew how counterintuitive it sounded, and he said it twice.
5. Even in persecution (Matt. 5:12). "Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great." The Beatitudes' summary command is not to endure persecution patiently but to rejoice in it.
6. Worship should be joyful (Ps. 122:1). "I was glad when they said to me, 'Let us go to the house of the LORD.'" The assembled worship of the people of God is supposed to produce gladness, not grimness.
7. Rejoice that your name is written in heaven (Luke 10:20). When the seventy returned rejoicing that the demons submitted to them in Jesus's name, he redirected the joy: not in the power, but in the permanence. "Your names are recorded in heaven." That is the ground of joy that lasts.

Application

Two questions this sermon presses:

Is your picture of Jesus complete? If the Jesus you know is primarily the suffering servant — if his joy is unfamiliar to you — you are missing half of him. The man who wept at Lazarus's tomb also turned water into wine at a wedding. He held both. Reading him selectively produces a one-dimensional Lord.

Where is your joy grounded? If it is grounded in circumstances — in health, employment, relationships, the resolution of difficulties — then it will rise and fall with those things. The joy Jesus offers is grounded in something that does not change: the resurrection, the Father's love, the name written in heaven. That is what makes it possible to rejoice always — not because things are always good, but because the ground of joy is always stable.

Conclusion

"These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full" (John 15:11). He said this in the upper room, hours before the crucifixion. The joy he was offering was not contingent on the outcome of the next twelve hours — because his joy was not based on the next twelve hours. It was based on the Father.

That is the joy that is available to every person who is in Christ. Not the cheerfulness that good news produces and bad news takes away. The joy underneath — the one that endured the cross and triumphed over death and is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8).

Invitation

If the Christian life has felt like endurance more than joy — if you have been carrying it rather than being carried by it — this sermon is an invitation to ask for the joy that Jesus specifically said he came to give.

For those not yet in Christ: the joy that the New Testament describes is not available on the outside. It is produced by the Spirit in the one who is in Christ. Come in. Believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Repent of your sins. Confess him before these witnesses. Be baptized for the remission of your sins (Acts 2:38) and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit — whose first fruit is love and whose second is joy (Gal. 5:22).

Word Study

Scripture Interlock Table

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Converted from H. Leo Boles, Outline 82. Primary texts: John 15:11 and 17:13 (stated by Boles). OCR fix: Boles's source shows "Gal. 5:23" for the fruit of the Spirit / joy reference; joy is listed in Gal. 5:22 (v. 23 continues with gentleness and self-control). Corrected to Gal. 5:22. Doctrinal audit: joy/sorrow held together without contradiction; joy grounded in the resurrection and the Father's love, not in external circumstances; fruit of the Spirit properly attributed to the Spirit's work, not human effort; invitation retains full obedient response (Acts 2:38).