The Lord experiences joy when He looks upon His people (Zep 3:17). “As there is a transport of joy in heaven in the conversion of sinners, so there is a remaining joy in the perseverance of saints.” (Matthew Henry) Even more, the Lord Jesus experienced the joy of living the obedient and fruitful life and wants His disciples to experience the same thing. This joy comes only as they wholeheartedly obey His commands.

Zephaniah 3:17  The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”

Strachan warns us to not confuse joy with pleasure. He says, “The joy of Jesus is the joy that arises from a finished work. It is creative joy, like the joy of the artist. It produces a sense of unexhausted power for fresh creation. This joy in the heart of Jesus is both the joy of victory (#15:11), and the sense of having brought His church into being.”

John 15:11  I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

Unger says of joy that it is ” a delight of the mind arising from the consideration of a present, or assured possession of a future good. When moderate it is called gladness; raised suddenly to the highest degree it is exultation or transport; when the desires are limited by our possessions it is contentment; high desires accomplished bring satisfaction; vanquished opposition we call triumph; when joy has so long possessed the mind that it has settled into a temper, we call it cheerfulness. This is natural joy.” He goes on to point out that there is also a moral joy which comes from having done the right thing, and a spiritual joy which is the fruit of the Spirit and is directed toward God. This spiritual joy is permanent.

Note that in half an hour Jesus would be in the Garden of Gethsemane and He knew exactly what was going to befall Him that night and yet He is speaking of “joy.” He was called a “man of sorrows” in (Isa 53:3) but in (Psalms 45:7) it prophesies that He would be anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows. Maclaren observes that “The deep truth that lies there is the same that He here claims as being fulfilled in His own experience, that absolute surrender and submission in love to the beloved commands of a loving Father made Him — in spite of sorrows, in spite of the baptism with which He was baptized, in spite of all the burden and the weight of our sins — the most joyful of men.” This joy that He is offering us comes from a complete surrender to the will of God in our lives and a total trust in Him to take care of us. “Our joy will remain if His joy is ours.” (Maclaren)

Isaiah 53:3  He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Psalms 45:7  You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.

The Greek word for joy is chara which is translated as joy or gladness, and has the same root word as rejoice does in (Php 4:4) which tells us to continually rejoice in Him. The Greek language is not nearly as expressive as the Hebrew when it comes to defining such words. The most common Hebrew word for “joy” or “rejoice” is giyl, which means to spin around under the influence of a violent emotion; to rejoice with a joy that expresses itself in the gestures of the body; to be very glad. It is used of us (Ps 32:11, 118:24; Isa 41:16,  65:18) and of God (Isaiah 65:19, Zeph 3:17). This should give us some insight into how joy can be expressed. The picture it brings to me is of Snoopy doing his spring dance or my dog after I have been away for a time. Even if we cannot express our joy in such an outward show (do it on a bus and you may get institutionalized), we can experience it’s dynamic inside of us. However, if we are experiencing the joy of the Lord on the inside of us, it would be quite difficult to not have it show in some way on our outside!

Philippians 4:4  Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

Psalms 32:11  Rejoice in the LORD and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart!

Psalms 118:24  This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Isaiah 41:16  You will winnow them, the wind will pick them up, and a gale will blow them away. But you will rejoice in the LORD and glory in the Holy One of Israel.

Isaiah 65:18  But be glad and rejoice for ever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy.

Isaiah 65:19  I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.

Zephaniah 3:17  The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”

Jesus wants us to have His joy within us and for our joy to be complete. How poorly the church has represented Christ by having a sour look on the face of its constituents and giving the impression that Christianity is not fun! When we are following Jesus and lovingly doing what He desires us to do, we are filled with an incredible joy and to not show it — to cover it up — is like hiding your lamp under a basket. People need to see how wonderful it is to follow Jesus. The world needs it so they will want to get saved and the church needs it so they will give themselves fully to Him. Sour-faced Christians will not set people on fire for Christ, but joy-filled ones certainly will. Which one are you? What are you going to do about it?