NeoZine

The effect of Christian joy is incalculable, because Joy is the fountainhead of revolution! There is strong biblical evidence that Joy is closely tied to Revolution, and Christians afraid of Revolution lead Joy-deprived lives.

Did you know “joy” is used almost 200 times in the New Testament? Is it surprising that “joy” is the most frequent word in the Bible describing the Christian life?

No Comparison

But first consider how unique this Joy is: Christianity was spread by revolutionaries pumped-up with Joy. No other religion or political movement can possibly imitate the Jesus Revolution simply because Joy is not taught, understood or held in high esteem anywhere outside Christianity.

Did you know that?

Man-made religions are keen on good works, paying for a ticket-to-heaven with lots of self-effort. Those arduous, torturous pilgrimages to spooky, sacred spaces–those echoes of somber chants, the flickering lights and dark rituals–are so foreign to the Jesus Revolution, but so central to man-made religion.

Did you know Christianity is the only faith on earth that actually denounces temples and sacred space? It was so sad when they tried replacing Joy with those spooky, dusky temples and sacred spaces! (“Mommy, why is it so dark in there?” says the child inside.)

But sacred space doesn’t fit well in Christianity. The ultimate sacred-space-project was the construction of St. Peter’s Basillica in Rome, and it triggered the Reformation. It was so costly they had to invent a new religion tax called Indulgences to pay for it, which sparked Martin Luther’s ire, which caused revolt, and then people once again found God in the heart where He’s finally at home. (Maybe sacred space is redemptive: when it drives people away from the god-building so they can find the living, true God, something good happened, even if it is revolt!)

Sacred space is just one reason why there’s no corollary for Christian Joy among the world’s religions. But there are more:

• The god of Buddhism extols a state of serenity through strict discipline, which necessitates the absence of  joy (and all emotion).
• The god of Islam is a severe deity, very unforgiving, and is spread by warfare, not joy. Suicide bombers buy a ticket to heaven, but what god would make such a bloody bargain?
• The god of Jehovah Witnesses forbid all celebrations, and the Mormon god is equally strict and full of foreboding.

Man-made religions are so feeble and frantic compared to The Jesus Revolution. What’s it like to be always-worried about pleasing “the gods”, or just one god? I don’t remember–it’s been a while since I’ve been to Church. It was a gross feeling, I think.

That’s Church: when people perceive Christianity as yet another somber and joyless religion, it means The Revolution is terribly suppressed — or it died.

Recently on NPR a young man said he left his parents’ Christianity become a Buddhist. Wow. Why would anyone abandon Joy and devote so much sweat to reach a state of emptiness–emotionless–like Buddhism teaches? He never found Joy in his parent’s  Church.

How’s your Joy doing?

Only the Jesus Revolution offered a personal relationship with our Creator. No religions offer that, not anywhere. And this is why nobody can imitate it. That personal relationship between human spirit and God’s Holy Spirit is the fountainhead of Joy.

Joy Sparks!

The spark of joy ignites when the Holy Spirit finds a grateful and responsive heart. Joy is the supernatural fingerprint of the Holy Spirit, and it looks like this:

He rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, and said, “I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.” Luke 10:21

It is the Joy of discovery: Jesus describes the Joy of participating in the great mysteries of God with God leading us there—things hidden “from the wise and intelligent” He “revealed to infants.” This is why “baby” Christians exhibit such a wide-eyed, almost childish, spontaneous faith called Joy: what amazing sights God reveals deep inside! He shows us who we really are, how we fit in the span of time, what makes us tick, why and how things are broken, but more important, how to fix broken things.

It is a courageous Joy: with astonishing courage young Christians share their faith with family and friends, often without hesitation, and sometimes without premeditation. So they might get in trouble for over-aggression or too much dogmatism, but the negative reactions surprise young Christians who only meant to share their Joy.

It is spiritual Joy, not manufactured Joy: it isn’t the enthusiasm of a salesman. It isn’t the clever theatrics or tricks we see on TV at times. It is a spiritual voice speaking God’s Word from God’s heart. It’s God’s revelation in a very dark world, so their Joy draws others into The Revolution:

“This is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy;” (Matthew 13:20).

Joy heals the backlash and persecution Christian revolutionaries receive from this hate-filled realm. The Holy Spirit always rushes to our aid. Revolution for the sake of revolution sputters and dies after too much persecution, but in the Jesus Revolution the Holy Spirit compensates with Joy:

“You also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit.” 1 Thessalonians 1:6 (NASB)

Joy follows the Word everywhere it goes, and this too is tied to the presence of the Holy Spirit:

“And the disciples were continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.” Acts 13:52 (NASB)

Young Christian lives are full of the Joy of discovering new and precious treasures, like this:

“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” Matthew 13:44 (NASB)

Young children express Joy so easily, it’s one of the priceless treasures of parenthood. When each of my boys first learned to walk,  a journey in our small back yard was an adventure filled with surprise and the Joy of discovery. A dandelion was a rare flower, ants were like alien life, and a small stream was a world of magic.

How it passes so quickly! Today it’s a hard-sell to walk with them period, and now they’re salty teenagers with complaints and grumbles. Nothing is new, everything is and boring — including me, “the old man”. Backyard walks just aren’t the same anymore. (Forgive me boys for exaggerating a bit.)

Older Christians become Joy-deprived like this, too. (How does God bear it?)

It is an issue of spiritual life-or-death for baby Christians to get nourished. While their joy is still alive, and before they settle into an established pattern, they must gorge on a healthy diet of God’s Word.

Joyless But Mature Christians

But older, more sedentary Christians often lose their revolutionary Joy, so they don’t appreciate the Joy expressed by their younger siblings. More often the older ones teach the younger to be wiser and less-vocal and more cautious about their faith. We want them to start acting like older Christians. These efforts may be virtuous, but all that instruction and correction douses flames of Joy if older Christians aren’t fueling The Revolution.

It isn’t malevolence, it’s spiritual indolence quashing Revolutionary Joy in older Christians. Without noticing, they lag behind until they drop out of the fight. This is endemic among Christians in America, where Capitalism slowly strangles the life out of everyone (we’re Killed by Systems). Christians may not be enslaved to the World System, but it saps our spiritual lives dry and steals our Joy. (Who comes home from work full of Christian Joy?) The World System is a joyless place, but young Christians see it differently.

Younger Christians are spawned in The Revolution, and they naturally grasp the revolutionary nature of spiritual life. Yesterday they lived in a non-Christian world without spiritual minds, but everything changed.

Young Christians are enamored with The Revolution and they carry revolutionary spirits inside. Young Christians are surrounded by others they can win into The Revolution, unlike older Christians, so they live like revolutionaries with a purpose to their lives.

Without purpose, what are we doing here? This becomes the real question for older Christians further removed from the upheavals of Revolution.

Today there is an unprecedented migration of Christians looking for purpose and drifting from one church to another.¹ Quite simply, they grow older and bored and restless. If they don’t join The Revolution, the Joy they knew as younger Christians will fade and leave a thirst for something more.

Drifting Christians lack purpose or vision. Christian Migration stems from a core human need implanted by God: a boy dreams of being a pirate or some conquering hero. Girls want to marry a pirate, not because he’s a pirate, but to join his quest. Nobody dreams of becoming a thief, but we are enamored with Robin Hood, because his band of Merry Men have purpose. Humans long to fight for a worthy cause.

Joy springs from new sources as Christians grow older: no longer do the great mysteries of God stir joy like they once did. God’s mysteries continue to unfold, and even more with maturity, but the older Christian is more accustomed to God’s self-revelation. Awe or reverence (often mistranslated as “fear” in the Bible) are more-suitable descriptions of the encounters older Christians have with God. We see it in the first Christian group as it matured:

So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase.  Acts 9:31 (NASB)

When “the fear of the Lord” dominates a group, that group is full of older Christians. ((See “The Fears in Legalism” for a contrast between biblical and unbiblical fear.)) Baby Christians don’t grasp the Fear-of-God doctrine, or don’t appreciate it, and certainly they don’t teach it effectively: it is an advanced concept appreciated by older Christians.

Reverence should never overshadow joy in the Christian community. When reverence dominates joy, a false view of God dominates the group: “our God is an awesome God”, the song says, but without joy God loses much awesomeness because He’s no fun! More important, a joyless Christian group loses the ability to perpetuate The Revolution. It is not a reverential movement. It is often sacrileges (to manmade traditions), and it’s disturbing to static religion.

Rather than despising the spontaneous joy of younger Christians, the older ones should rediscover their lost joy. After all, joy is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22) and the clear evidence of God’s supernatural presence in a Christian community is “the joy of the Holy Spirit” (as in 1 Thess. 1:6, above). Besides, older Christians are just plain boring, period!

For the sake of balance, we should add that a joyous Christian group without any reverence would have to be little more than a mob. Reverence is tied to authority and order, and “God is not a God of confusion, but peace” (1 Cor. 14:33).

Indomitable Joy!

The most significant outcome of Christian joy is the way it fortifies Christian Revolution and fuels the will to fight. After a flogging and severe threats from the authorities,

“they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name.” And then, “every day, in the temple and from house to house, they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.” Acts 5:41-42 (NASB)

So bold! So defiant! “They kept right on teaching…”

But most important, they were “rejoicing” and not rebelling in a mean-spirited, hateful way, as revolutionaries in the World System rebel. Communist agitators spewed the most hate-filled rhetoric at anyone who disagreed with their philosophy. Without exception communists won by disgracing, silencing, assassinating and bullying opposition leaders. Such are the tactics of a revolution built on fragile or false principles.²

But our foundation is fact-based. It is verifiable and unafraid of open debate. All the founders of Christianity welcomed public debate, beginning with Jesus, and the Christian world view easily won in open debate, because the Christian world view is such a refreshing alternative to the cruelty and blind obedience usually mandated in human culture (still today). The greatest barriers to the spread of Christianity was censorship and false accusations (that Christians were cannibals, or they practiced incest, and other accusations that raised panic, but completely false).

What an attractive revolution it was!

It can happen today, too: these were joyous, fun and non-threatening revolutionaries, yet they were very threatening to the power-brokers and religious elite who lost powerful social advantages when Christianity appeared. These were the ones who grew more jealous of the Christians.

Joy feeds the Christian resolve to fight. This principle was first established by our leader Jesus Christ, who faced the most ominous and painful opposition at the cross:

Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Hebrews 12:2 (NASB)

Anyone “despising the shame” of crucifixion is contemptuous towards a feeble opposition. This joyful contempt is the beating heart of a radical revolutionary, and it poses a formidable threat: it is Indomitable Joy.

And his joy ignited a real revolution. It wasn’t a theological concept, because Jesus then “sat down at the right hand of the throne of God,” and from this lofty position he declared the overthrow of all opposition: “Now all authority in heaven and earth belongs to me!” he said. Then he invited us to join his Revolution: “Go! Make disciples of the nations!”³ And by that he meant, “Go! Raise up some revolutionaries!”

Whatever happened to the spirit of Indomitable Joy? Why isn’t every Christian in America caught up in The Revolution? Can any corporation or cause compete? Sadly, Christians too easily exchange their rightful role in The Revolution for scraps and toys from the World System: simple bribes to pacify the prisoners.

The “Great Commission” is not a law or a road to heaven, as promised by the Jehovah Witnesses, Muslims, Mormons and other world religions to their militant mercenaries. In fact, Christian revolutionaries are not militants at all, nor are they mercenaries: the difference is evident in their Indomitable Joy. (Ever seen a joyful military man? When the war is won, perhaps then, but not out in the battlefields the way Christians display it!) Christian revolutionaries are motivated by joy and they spread joy.

Footnotes:

1. See Willow Creek’s recent research on church migration among older Christians. [↩]
2. The inherent weakness in Communist philosophy was the wild imagination of Karl Marx, who envisioned the advent of a selfless, generous society. Marx put his faith in Darwinian evolution, so naturally humanity was evolving out of its selfish, savage history. His faith betrayed him and hundreds of millions. [↩]
3. (Mt. 28:18,19 [↩]

---

Related posts:

1. Change
2. Revolution of Joy