The Joy of God!

This week at GHBC, we are memorizing Galatians 5:22-23 as part of our weekly memory work. This text is famous for describing the fruit of the Spirit. Joy is part of that fruit. God commands us to have joy! But what is amazing and what we rarely think about is that God is joyful! John MacArthur recently preached a sermon on Luke 15 in which he prefaced his message on the prodigal son with these thoughts on the "joy of God." Of course, John Piper has caused us all to think a lot about the joy of God in being God over the last 20 years or more. Here is what MacArthur had to say:

“Scripture is very clear that God has no joy in the death of the wicked, no pleasure in their destruction. It was Jesus weeping over Jerusalem saying how often I wanted to gather you as a hen gathereth her brood and you would not and he wept. The truth is that God finds his joy not in the destruction of the wicked but in the recovery of sinners. We don’t talk much about the joy of God. I think the foundation for everything in life and ministry is the doctrine of God, theology proper. And we preach about a lot of things concerning the nature of God, his communicable and incommunicable attributes. And one of the things that seems to me that gets left out of this is the joy of God.

I don’t know that we actually think of God as joyful, but I want you to know that God experiences unending, consummate joy every moment. And what gives him this joy? Deuteronomy 30 verses 9 and 10 says ‘For the Lord your God will rejoice over you if you obey the voice of the Lord your God to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in the book of the law and if you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.’ And in Isaiah 62:5 the scripture says ‘and as a bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.’ And the analogy is of the supreme joy in human experience. The joy of a bridegroom over his bride. God rejoices in that way. Jeremiah 32:38: ‘They shall be my people, I’ll be their God. I’ll give them one heart, one way that they may fear me for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them and I will not turn away from them to do them good and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, so that they will not turn away from me and I will rejoice over them.’

God finds his joy in the salvation of sinners. In Zephaniah chapter 3 an equally marvelous statement is made in verse 16, “In that day it will be said to Jerusalem do not be afraid oh Zion, do not let your hands fall limp. The Lord your God is in your midst a victorious warrior and he will rejoice over you with joy. He will be quiet in his love and yet he will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.’ We don’t think of God as shouting with joy.

Joy is found in the recovery of lost sinners. Both John 3:16 and Luke 19:10 ‘the Son of man has come to seek and to save the lost’ indicate God’s compelling interest in the recovery of lost sinners out of his eternal love for his own eternal joy.

Jonathan Edwards said, ‘God infinitely values his own glory and finds his infinite joy in that glory.’ And Edwards understood that God’s joy is greatest where his glory is greatest. And in human history he said his greatest glory is displayed in the salvation of sinners and therefore it is his highest joy. Edwards says, ‘God has greatly glorified himself in the work of creation and providence. All his works praise him and his glory shines brightly from them all. But as some stars differ from others in glory, so the glory of God shines brighter in some of his works than in others. And, amongst all these the work of redemption is like the Son in his strength.’ And Edwards said, ‘Christ has done greater things than to create the world in order to obtain his bride and, it is the joy of his marriage with her.’ Edwards said, ‘God’s single end in redemption is his own joy.’”