Worldly and Christian Joy

I’m calling this sermon today ‘The Church is a Place of Genuine Happiness’ and I’ll come to what I mean by that in a moment. But I’d like to tell a story to begin with.

Some years ago, as part of my training for ministry, I had to attend a particularly tragic funeral. This was of a young man who had taken his own life much to the shock of those around him, including his own family members. It remains the most grief-saturated funeral that I have experienced. Many of his friends were there and gave warm and loving tributes to him. But the service itself was beset with a sense of hopelessness and despair. It was obvious that nobody who spoke had any tangible faith in Christ or a life beyond this one. And so all that could be shared were vague hopes of reunion and happy memories.

None of this is to criticise these people in any way. I felt, and continue to feel, deeply grieved myself when I consider this event.

As I say, I was at the beginning of my training and I had not encountered anything like this funeral. What surprised me was what I heard the following day. The friends and family had rented out a local facility for the wake and reports from the surrounding area were of loud music, singing, laughing, and drinking that lasted into the very early hours of the morning. I discussed this with the vicar of the church and with other people and various words were used to describe it. Among the words that stand out in my memory: deep denial, torpor, and oblivion.

And all of this was facilitated by the consumption of large quantities of alcohol.

What does alcohol do to the human body? I’m sure you might know that it acts as a depressant. It has the physiological effect of slowing down bodily processes, thereby making people more forgetful of their sorrows and therefore reducing anxiety. In the scenario described above, the role of alcohol was to help the people (for that night) to feel slightly less grief and despair at the death of their friend and family member.

But, of course, the trouble is that we always have to wake up the next morning and face reality. And this fact brings us to the central contrast in our passage today: ‘Do not get drunk with wine for that is debauchery,’ writes the Apostle Paul, ‘but be filled with the Spirit’ (Ephesians 5:11).

As with all of the commands of God, this one is steeped in great wisdom and insight. Becoming drunk with wine may bring relief from anxiety or sorrow for a time, but this is only because one is escaping from reality. It produces a fleeting and superficial joy that cannot possibly be sustained.

Would you believe me if I told you that a much greater joy and more lasting joy is offered to us through knowing Jesus Christ and experiencing his presence and guidance in our lives?

This Christian joy is quite different to that offered by the consumption of alcohol. Firstly, it is far more challenging. This is because it is a joy that is not rooted in escape from life’s problems but in honesty as to what those problems are.

I’ve heard it said that, when a person becomes a Christian, he or she becomes simultaneously more happy and more sad. How can this be? Because becoming a Christian entails living as far as we possibly can in the real world: we have to be honest about ourselves, about our own sin, our own shortcomings, our own failure. And we have to be honest about how things really are: the state of our families, of our nations, of the Church, of the world. We are not to hide from reality but we are to confront it in the knowledge of God’s love for us and in his promises. These things can give us a joy that endures even the most terrible sorrow.

How are we to find this genuine joy?

How are we to find this joy? The Apostle Paul has already given us the answer: ‘Be filled with the Spirit’ – that is the Holy Spirit.

Before I go any further let me just say that this is not a flippant answer. This is an ongoing process within the formation of the Christian soul. And it must be fought for every day of our lives. Even though redeemed by Christ and lifted to him through the Gospel and the ministry of the Church, we remain earthbound, broken, sinful, weak, and subject to the sentence of decay and death. The process of spiritual formation in Christ is a daily battle.

Verse 18, which I have already quoted, is part of a sentence which continues in the following way: ‘Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ’.

Paul mentions here addressing one another in psalms and hymns and songs, singing, and giving thanks. The relationship between these things and being filled with the Spirit is not entirely clear. Are they the result or the cause? I want to suggest that they are both, that the way to be filled with the Spirit is to engage in these activities and that the way to engage in these activities is to be filled with the Spirit. 

Let me explain: sometimes – a lot of the time – we may not feel like speaking to one another of God’s goodness, of singing praise to God, of giving thanks to him, and things of this sort. But have you ever noticed that, when you make a conscious decision to do these things, it very often makes a big difference to the way you are feeling? Sometimes the singing of a hymn can lift the heart and bring about a joy and a peace that simply wasn’t there before. Notice that you are not in direct control of your feelings through willingthem to change, but you can do things which might affect them and frequently do.

I think this lifting of the heart to God is what Paul means by being filled with the Holy Spirit. Consider our English words ‘inspiration’ and ‘enthusiasm’. These literally mean the same thing – to be billed with the spirit – and are undoubtedly positive qualities.

In this sense, doing what Paul says – speaking of God, singing to God, and giving thanks to God – results in being filled with the Holy Spirit. We are made more joyful, more thankful, more enthusiastic than we were before.

On the other hand then, when we are filled with the Spirit, we more naturally and easily (we might say almost automatically) praise and thank God for his goodness towards us. It is as though a melody appears in our hearts, and thankfulness rests upon the tips of our tongues – not in a fake way, but in a way which issues naturally from somewhere deep within. We are inspired and made joyful and, therefore, we praise and give thanks.

Two things about this before I finish: firstly, to be filled with the Spirit, therefore, involves a decision of the will. More than that, it requires a daily decision and perhaps even more: I will give thanks, I will praise, I will speak of God’s goodness. The fact that we have to tell ourselves to do these things is normal and to be expected. If you know the Psalms, you’ll know this because the writers of the Psalms are always speaking to themselves:

‘Why are you cast down, O my soul,and why are you in turmoil within me?Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,my salvation and my God.’

Psalm 42:5-6

A lot of the time we have to speak to our own souls and make a conscious and willing decision to praise God and to be thankful.

So that’s the first thing: We are involved. We have to decide to seek the fullness of God’s presence in the Holy Spirit. But let’s not miss here the corporate dimension. Yes, this is an individual decision, but Paul also puts this in the context of the Church: ‘addressing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs’. It is not entirely clear to me exactly what he meant by this: Did he mean literally singing songs at one another?

Perhaps we might find again some guidance in the Psalms. The Psalms are filled with what we might call corporations exhortations to praise. One could pick almost any Psalm and find an example of this, but here’s a bit from Psalm 150:

‘O praise God in his holiness :praise him in the firmament of his power.Praise him in his noble acts :praise him according to his excellent greatness.’

Psalm 150:1-2

Who is the Psalmist talking to here? In a sense he is talking to God, but in another sense, he is talking to all the faithful and exhorting: ‘Come and praise God with me! God is so great; he is worthy of our praise!’

This is a reality in many hymns also: ‘All people that on earth do dwell, sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.’ ‘Lift up your hearts; we lift them Lord to thee!’

And one could go on, but you get the point: our worship and praise rendered to God somehow isn’t quite complete unless we can share it with others and invite them to praise God with us.

As he often is, C.S. Lewis is quite insightful here:

‘I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.’

C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

Lewis goes on to speak of how frustrating it is to discover a new author who is so great but who nobody else has heard of. How frustrating not to be able to praise him to others and so complete one’s enjoyment of his work!

So too is it with God: there is something fulfilling and natural about praising God not only directly but in exhorting others to praise him also and speaking of all his greatness towards us.

And this, friends, is one of the reasons we need the Church, because it is here in this place that we take the individual praise of our hearts and we express it in concert with God’s people. A new humanity exists in this place, a humanity that renders unto God that which he truly deserves, which is worship and joyful obedience. And our praise and our exhortations to one another are all part of it.

The Church is the place of true and genuine joy. And that joy is found in praising God, in singing to him, in speaking of his greatness, and in being filled with his presence in the Holy Spirit. Let us, therefore, seek this blessing, moment-by-moment, apart and together.

Amen.