JOY AND HAPPINESS

Most of what I write comes from experiences in my life. Sometimes it is conversations with people or just thoughts that I have. Then God and I spend some time together with these ideas and when I begin to understand it I bring it to you and try to teach and share with you these “revelations” that I have had. This topic is similar and yet different because I have not come to a complete understanding of this yet but I am confident that God will grant us wisdom and understanding as we continue to seek after Him and His ways. I have had a difficult time in preparing this but as I prayed and thought about all the people at the nursing home where I sometimes speak I began to realize that some of them were already living this. So I write this with thankfulness in my heart to the elderly who are living the example.

Jam 1:2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,

I always thought how could I possibly be happy when all this terrible stuff is happening? My whole world seems to be falling apart around me and I’m supposed to be happy. This whole Christian thing wasn’t going to work for me if I was supposed to be happy that terrible things happen. After a terrible car crash that left two promising 18-year-old girls that had just graduated 4 days prior dead. One of which was my daughter’s best friend and also her boyfriend’s sister. Then on top of it all I have other family situations that, well lets just say its not stuff to be happy about. How could one possibly be happy and count it all joy? But of course being happy and counting it all joy have two totally different meanings. That is why it is important to study, learn and listen. So that is what I started to do.
So I looked into what the word joy meant and what was the lesson or what was the text seeming to say and is it the same thing as happiness.
My deduction... God will give us joy but He never promised us happiness. You may say “Dan you’re splitting hairs, it means the same thing”. No. I don’t believe it does. I think there is a very distinct difference in the joy that the Bible speaks of and the word happy that we use today. When we speak of being happy we think of laughing and as my wife stated “happiness is an outward expression of an emotional feeling”. When I asked my youngest son what happiness was to him it was getting a new skateboard, going to a party, going on vacation. He associated happiness with temporal type things. The word happiness as we use it today is superficial and without depth. It comes and goes depending on surrounding circumstances and is based primarily on feelings.
The unabridged version 1.1 at dictionary .com defines happiness as:
1. The quality or state of being happy.
2. Good fortune; pleasure

Now lets take a look at the word joy. In a majority of the texts that I will be referring to today according to Strongs is translated as...
chara
khar-ah'
From G5463; cheerfulness, that is, calm delight: - gladness, X greatly, (X be exceeding) joy (-ful, -fully, -fulness, -ous).

I love the phrase “calm delight”. In the midst of any circumstance you can have a calm delight. I wrote earlier that the people at the nursing home helped me with this sermon, I look around at them and I see the smiles and the peace on their faces and it helped me to realize that this concept can be real. Even in the pain some of them are in, even in the heartache and disappointment that some of them are experiencing they are still there every Sunday trying their best to sing and smile for the Lord. In their situation the world would tell them that you have a right to be bitter and mean and curse God for what He has done to you. But most of them are able to have a calm delight or a joy that the world could never understand without the love of Christ in their own hearts. You see it in their faces when we sing the old hymns and they come to life. People who hardly move or even grunt during the week are lifting their feeble arms to praise the Lord. The nurses are hardly able to believe how much they participate and how they are revived.
Let me give you an example that the Bible gives to help understand this concept...
. Joh 16:21 When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.
Joh 16:22 So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
The woman was in pain and was not happy at the moment but she never lost her joy in knowing that she was about to have a baby. It’s worth the pain. You wouldn’t curse God because of the pain; you would thank God for the blessing of the baby.
Of course the ultimate example for us to strive to follow would be that of Christ himself. Lets look at Hebrews chapter 2.
Heb 12:2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God,
I don’t think Jesus was ever not joyful about his purpose on this earth. He knew from the beginning why He was here and although He was not always happy, that joy was always set before Him. A calm delight if you will because He knew what was to come.
Does this mean that we shouldn’t ever be happy and have fun? Of course not.
What it does mean is that when you are going through a time of your life when things don’t seem to be so happy or are downright unhappy you can still keep your chin up and not be bitter toward friends, family or even God. JD Hatfield went over this on Wednesday evening and it applied so well I wanted to go over it with you.
1Co 7:21 Were you a slave when called? Do not be concerned about it. But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.
1Co 7:22 For he who was called in the Lord as a slave is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a slave of Christ.
1Co 7:23 You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.
1Co 7:24 So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.
This is directly from JD’s notes on these verses. I wanted to be accurate. He wrote...Just because a slave can and should please God doesn’t mean that Paul is teaching that God doesn’t want men to be free. Just because you can glorify God in that dark place doesn’t necessarily mean God wants to leave you there, but your attitude must be that if He does leave you there you will serve Him by serving in that situation anyway. If you can be free, if you can be loosed, if you can be made whole, healed, helped or whatever then praise the Lord. If not, well, then praise the Lord too. In everything give thanks
1Th 5:18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
No matter what earthly situation you find yourself in keep yourself in the love of God.
JD also writes... Sometimes the power of God is not to deliver you from a situation but through and in that situation itself, so others, whom are not Christians or who are weak in the faith, they can see what a mature believer would do in the same situation.
Unhappiness is not necessarily a punishment for sinning. It doesn’t mean God has forgotten you, but part of God’s ultimate plan that is for His good and for His glory.
If you have the ability to be happy by all means be happy! But your amount of happiness should never affect the amount of joy you have. I could give you several references in the Bible that give us examples and lessons on having joy in difficult situations. Paul is an excellent example of this as he writes of joy while in prison. His focus was not on his circumstances but on Christ and His Glory. We need to focus on glorifying Christ then happiness is no longer a priority but a bonus.