A Supernatural Joy

Christian joy is not the natural characteristic of a sunny disposition. Today, Sinclair Ferguson explains that God’s grace alone can account for the joy produced in us as we go through trials and affliction.

We’ve been talking this week about the fruit of the Spirit that Paul mentions in Galatians 5. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” I said they seem to come in groups of three. And to be honest, my plan was to take three at a time this week so that we could spend a week together thinking about them. But I hope you don’t mind that I’ve changed my mind and we’re going to spend two weeks on them.

So, the fruit of the Spirit is love and then joy. Perhaps we think of joy as the kind of characteristic some people have by nature and others don’t. And perhaps you feel that you fit into the second category. If so, I can sympathize with you. I doubt if joy is one of the leading characteristics of people who have Celtic blood in them. But the joy that Paul is speaking about here is not the natural characteristic of a sunny disposition. And the reason I say that is found in the passage I mentioned earlier in the week, Romans 5:1–11, because Paul there describes a triple joy that has got very little to do with a sunny disposition. He says, “We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, but more than that, we rejoice in our sufferings.”

And what that underlines for us is that the joy of which Paul is speaking as a fruit of the Spirit is not a result of our genetic structure, but of our being justified by faith in Christ, and therefore having a new relationship to God and being at peace with Him. And that’s not just a sunny disposition, is it? You and I know people who have sunny dispositions, but they don’t rejoice in any of these things.

As people might say at home in Scotland, “Christian joy’s no natural.” It’s not natural. It’s something that’s produced in us by the Holy Spirit. And it’s produced in us only when we’ve been brought to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; because our sins have been forgiven and we’ve been counted righteous; and because, as Paul says, we’ve begun to understand that through difficulties, trials, friction, sufferings, affliction, the Spirit is working to make us more and more like Jesus. He’s producing endurance and character and hope in us.

And chiefly we have joy because we know that God loves us, and we have the ultimate proof of His love in that He gave His Son for us. So, the joy of which Paul speaks here is no natural. It’s spiritual. It’s the fruit of the Spirit. And so, as a waiter in a restaurant might say when he puts the meal down before you, “Enjoy.”