Editor’s Note: This piece was originally published in October 2023.
At age 18 I decided to take a gap year to work and travel before going on to college. Little did I know that there was a much bigger gap in my life that was about to be filled. I was well on my way to throwing off my childhood religion and becoming an atheist. But a funny thing happened on my way to becoming an atheist — I encountered the real thing.
Through a friend and his family, I came to a small country church in Illinois where people really knew God and had the joy of the Lord, and it was contagious. Their lives were very attractive, and I found myself drawn to these simple people who were not particularly charismatic, but authentic. They prayed as though God was truly there. They studied the Bible like it really mattered. They worshipped God with sincerity and freedom. This encounter with joy allowed me to be open to dealing with the serious questions and doubts I had about Christian faith. God’s Spirit was powerfully drawing me, and within a few months I came to embrace Christ as my Lord and Savior, receiving His forgiveness and submitting to His Lordship. And I discovered the source of the joy that I saw in these people.
And so began the most joyful time in my life. Just as there was great rejoicing in the “lost and found” parables of Luke 15, so it was with me. I had discovered this great prize, the greatest treasure of all — Jesus and His joyful Kingdom. And I was very aware that it was in fact God who had found me, the lost sheep, the wayward son. I remember feeling, like Christian in “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” that a great burden of sin had rolled off my shoulders.
During my gap year, I was working in a factory in Chicago near Wrigley Field to make money for college. And because my newfound faith was so fresh and exciting, I took my lunch hours to go up on the rooftop of the factory, to be alone and to sing the few Christian songs that I knew. I sang at the top of my lungs, with tears streaming down my face. And I was filled with joy. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.” Yes!
If you became a Christian as an adult, perhaps you recall when you first discovered the joy of Christ and His saving grace. Or perhaps you grew up in a Christian home, but there was a time when God became real to you, delivered you, in a time of need. There is joy in knowing Jesus.
It is true that over time that newfound joy begins to fade. Our new life becomes more routine, and the newness begins to wear off. But the joy is not gone. It becomes richer and fuller. Not long ago, I was driving down the highway, singing some of my favorite hymns, with tears streaming down my face. Even when we are having a bad day, we live in the truth of the gospel — full atonement, grace freely given, the thrill of knowing Jesus. In his book “He Has Made Me Glad,” Ben Patterson comments that he now responds differently to the polite question, “How are you doing, Ben?” He often responds with “Well, other than the fact that my sins are completely forgiven, and I am guaranteed eternity with God, I am not doing so well today.”
What Is Joy?
So, what do we mean by Christian joy, and how is it different from happiness or pleasure? The Scripture has a lot to say about joy. In one sense, joy is not hard to understand. We all know it when we see it, and we know it when we feel it. Biblical joy is not just a fleeting feeling or emotion; it is something deeper, sturdier, and weightier. I have come to define joy as a steady disposition and a hopeful, peaceful outlook on life. It is that deep-seated sense of well-being (God’s shalom) when we become aware of God’s bountiful, gracious gifts to us. Joy accompanies contentment and leaves our striving behind.
In “The Screwtape Letters” (Letter 11), C.S. Lewis talks about the four kinds of laughter or humor: joy, fun, the joke proper, and flippancy. The highest and most sublime by far is the laughter that emerges naturally from joy. Screwtape has no idea where this laughter comes from and views it as a grave danger to the devil’s cause. Whereas flippancy, or cynicism, in which the joke is always assumed to already have been told, is the most useful for the schemes of the evil one. What is expressed in this case is more of a scoff than a laugh, and there is no joy in it.
While we often do use the terms “joy” and “happiness” as synonyms, they are not identical. Happiness tends to be somewhat fickle, dependent on the ever-changing circumstances of life. Happiness is individual; joy is always others-oriented, lived out in community. We are always joyful over something or someone.
Biblical joy is not just a fleeting feeling or emotion; it is something deeper, sturdier, and weightier. It is that deep-seated sense of well-being when we become aware of God’s bountiful, gracious gifts to us.
As David Brooks points out, happiness is something you pursue; joy is always a bit of a surprise and unexpectantly sweeps over us. “To live with joy is to live with wonder, gratitude, and hope,” he wrote in his book, “The Second Mountain.” We don’t find joy by seeking joy, we find joy by seeking God’s kingdom and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33).
We can also distinguish joy from pleasure. Of course, pleasure can simply mean that which is pleasing or pleasant. But sometimes they are at opposite poles, when pleasure means self-indulgent passions (Ecclesiastes 2; Titus 3:3). Pleasure can even steal our joy. Joy is not merely a pleasurable feeling brought on by a chemical reaction in the brain. In popular culture, dopamine is viewed as the brain’s pleasure chemical, which can be produced by addictive drugs, sex, eating, or the anticipation of reward.
But again, joy is fuller, deeper, and more enduring. The Psalmist contrasts real joy with the pleasurable feeling brought on by a bountiful harvest and an abundance of wine:
You have put more joy in my heart
than they have when their grain and wine abound.
In peace I will both lie down and sleep;
for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.
(Psalm 4:7–8)
David speaks of a joy that is richer and more satisfying than even the pleasures of an abundant harvest with full barns and bursting wine cellars.
Joy is living the abundant life that Jesus came to offer (John 10:10). It is living life to the hilt, being fully alive, a life full of meaning and purpose. As we see in the life of Jesus, the joyful life is one of giving to others. It is a life filled with worship toward God and generosity toward others rather than self-protectiveness.
Above all, joy is a gift, and Jesus promised to give His joy to His disciples — “These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). Joy is a fruit of the Spirit, sandwiched between “love” and “peace.” This reminds us that love without joy can be very grim and dour. And peace without joy may be a counterfeit peace — a detached, passive calmness oblivious to the pain of others.
Joy to the World
Of course, this joy is not only for us. Jesus came to bring joy to the world.
Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord (Luke 2:10–11).
We sing the popular Christmas carol by Isaac Watts:
Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King;
let ev’ry heart prepare him room and heav’n and nature sing.
Do we notice that it makes some very bold claims? First, it offers “joy to the world.” The advent of Jesus was marked by joy from beginning to end. Something new is clearly happening. The Savior, the Lord, the Messiah-King has arrived in the world with a message of joy, and this is good news indeed. This changes everything.
This carol also claims that He comes “to reign” — not as a political ruler, and certainly not by force, but in the hearts of those who will receive Him: “Let every heart prepare him room.” His rule is like no other, characterized by truth and grace, bringing justice and liberty to the oppressed (Luke 4:18-19). As Savior, He offers to forgive our sins and deliver us from the bondage of self-indulgence.
Clearly, Jesus came to bring joy to the world, life in all its fullness. But as our culture moves further away from Christian values and deeper into a materialist, secular mindset, it is easy to begin to lose confidence that this message is still relevant today. Is the gospel still good news for people in our society? After 35 years in campus ministry, bringing the gospel to secular universities and seeing students’ lives transformed in this country and Europe, I want to say the answer is a resounding Yes! The gospel is still the life-changing message that speaks to the deepest needs of people’s hearts. The gospel is still the “power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).
Joy is living the abundant life that Jesus came to offer. It is living life to the hilt, being fully alive, a life full of meaning and purpose. As we see in the life of Jesus, the joyful life is one of giving to others.
The joy of the Lord is something we must share with the world. God’s joy in our lives may be the most convincing apologetic for Christian faith in our day. A life of joy, even in hardship, is a powerful and attractive witness to God’s grace in our lives. As I write this, I am grieving the loss of my dear wife of 56 years, and still the joy breaks through. In listening to people’s testimonies of how they came to faith in Jesus, they often will say, “There was something about this Christian friend, a deep joy in her life, and I wanted to know the secret of that joy.”
Let me be clear about the nature of Jesus’ mission of joy to the world. Jesus did not come to earth merely as a reformer. In His earthly ministry, He did indeed reveal a whole new way of life and a new kingdom, and this was a necessary and vital part of His mission. But it would be a mistake to think that Jesus could have accomplished His radical mission of bringing joy to this world only by providing a new model for living.
We were not just in need of a new philosophy to straighten out our misguided thinking. The condition of our hearts was much graver than that — we were spiritually dead. This world needed a full, transformative redemption. We needed supernatural reconciliation with God to reconcile with one another. And this could be accomplished only by a sacrifice — the perfect, innocent, voluntary offering of the Son of God for us (Ephesians 5:2).
Obstacles to the Joyful Gospel
It is true that many in our world seem to have lost interest in spiritual things. They seem to be asleep or in a dream, disinterested or incapable of thinking about what makes life worth living. We might even say that Western culture is under a spell.
In “The Weight of Glory,” C.S. Lewis speaks to this enchantment:
Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years. Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modern philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth.
We live in a day when the internet offers nonstop diversions at our fingertips. We can immerse ourselves endlessly in a virtual world of everything from games to news, movies, chats, photos, and stories. Meanwhile, the real world is passing us by. These diversions create a deadening effect that keeps us from seeing ourselves as people made in God’s image, made for relationship with God and with other people.
But Jesus is still the light of the world, and that light is powerful in overcoming the darkness.
And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:5).
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world (John 1:9).
Many in the first century, of course, resisted and rejected this message: “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, but the world did not know Him” (John 1:10). And today, in trying to bring God’s joyful gift of salvation into our modern world, we quickly bump into some obstacles. We find ourselves in a secularized, largely materialist world that strikes at the core of each of these greatest joys — our encounters with beauty, our ability to be astonished, the discovery of new truth, the worship of God, our deepest friendships, and the experience of gratitude. Our modern age reduces our present human existence to a cosmic quirk in evolutionary development. This results in a general loss of appreciation for anything transcendent, ruling out the supernatural.
In addition, the 17th-century Enlightenment now seems to have completely evaporated in our generation, placing the autonomous, individual self squarely at the center of the universe. Children of the Enlightenment, at least in the West, are social orphans. No longer do we define ourselves by our family heritage, our community, or our place, but rather as independent free agents. It is now up to me to decide who I am, how I define myself, and what I want to do with my life. I am answerable to no greater authority than me. There is no inherent meaning in life, other than that which I create for myself. This leads to immense anxiety and stress.
Many in our day have given up on joy altogether, and others are sadly losing their capacity for joy. But the present secular ruling paradigm is quickly losing its glamour. The loss of true values and virtues leaves people empty and bankrupt, without a moral compass. Many are asking: Is that all there is?
Thankfully, the desire for joy and meaning and fullness of life is resilient. It cannot be easily destroyed. In every heart there is a deep longing for joy, something that is absolutely good and beautiful and true. This inner ache for joy and significance cannot be quashed, even with all the distractions and amusements readily available to us.
Meanwhile, Jesus stands with open arms, saying, “I have come that you might have life in all its fullness. Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Our calling is to be people of joy, communities of joy, to turn people’s yearning for joy to the real joy-giver, Jesus, who came to bring joy to the world.
Daniel Denk is an ordained minister in the PCA. He has directed ministry with university students in some 45 countries and served as theological director with InterVarsity. He is the author of “An Invitation to Joy: The Divine Journey to Human Flourishing” (Eerdmans Publishing) from which this article is adapted.