Study of Peter: joy in the Lord

We’ve come to the final Christian attribute that Peter demonstrated for us in Lukewarm Church series. 

While this study hasn’t been an extensive list, it highlights a few important qualities that Peter learned and demonstrated. We’ll end with the joy in the Lord. 

Peter shares how joy is a response to God’s gift of salvation in 1 Peter 1. He describes it in verse 6, “in this you greatly rejoice” and 8, “you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible”. 

The reality of our world

Why in the world would we be able to find “joy inexpressible” in a world so broken and full of hurt? Of course not everyone has the same burdens, but we all live in the same reality that sin reigns freely, rippling chaos and destruction in its path.

Justice isn’t served. Disease spreads. Poverty prevails. The world is decaying. Death seems to be winning. 

The world is broken, and every living being feels it. 

Peter felt this deeper than most - if not all - Western Christians. Persecution was rampant, and living a consistent, comfortable life was not in the cards for his life-long ministry of spreading the Gospel.

There is no tit for tat for who has ‘suffered the most in their life’ award. The world’s aches impact each of us in different ways. The point is, it’s a universal fact. Suffering is not only expected but the norm.

Dane C. Ortlund put it like this in his book Deeper, “Pain is not the islands of our lives but the ocean; disappointment or letdown is the stage on which all of life unfolds, not an occasional blip on an otherwise comfortable and smooth life.”

“Why,” some may protest, “this sounds like an awful little world created by a cruel God then.” Except, this isn’t how He created it at all. We can go back to Genesis for that.

When we read through Genesis, we watch as the blueprints of the world are first laid out - all Creation is designed to find purpose and joy in their Creator. It’s only when we look to created things to give us what we can only find in God that we will always be left wanting. 

This truth is quite unsexy. It’s not nice, or convenient for living like we are generally good people. This is what makes the gospel so offensive to many. Let’s face it, we’re used to being our own little gods over our reality of the universe. 

And this is what keeps us from true, lasting joy. We only find temporary blips of happiness or moments of euphoria when we live rejecting the truth of who God is. Certainly, God created the world with lots of happiness - the beauty in music, the embrace of a loved one, sun-kissed daisies floating softly in the wind. So it comes as no surprise that these nuggets of joy embedded into the world would provide us slivers of happiness. 

But is there more? Yes, this is precisely my point. The reason I use the words “slivers of happiness” is because that’s just what it is. The joys we experience here on earth are fingerprints of His glory. And we can only dig deeper into those glorious joys when we dig deeper into the One who made them. 

Knowing God

So let’s dig deeper, shall we? The 'joy of the Lord’ we speak so often in church comes from knowing and enjoying Him. We can do this only in part here on earth simply because we’re still in this imperfect world. God made a way for us to partake in His holiness through His Son Jesus’ sacrifice. And as Christians, there are several things we can ‘partake in’ here and now. We don’t have to wait until Heaven for this. 

See, I grew hearing the phrase “I’m just praying for Jesus to come back”. While there’s nothing wrong with waiting eagerly for the day that all is made right on earth and we are back in perfect communion with God - it often stops there. There’s such an emphasis on Heaven and the idea that “Earth is just a rest stop, it’s not home” that we dismiss our time living here. 

God didn’t create us so that we could sit in our homes dutifully reading our Bibles, waiting for the day they go to Heaven. This ideology misses His mission for us completely. 

God didn’t have to create this world, but He did. He created us so that we might be able to enjoy Him. He didn’t force Himself on us, we have the option to choose Him or not. Instead, He sent His perfect Son to be a “man of sorrows” on our behalf. 

“He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.” - Isaiah 53:3

Jesus lived a perfect life so that we never had to rely on our own efforts to be “good enough” for God’s love. He was despised so we never have to live in shame. He was abandoned by God so we never have to be. He was acquainted with grief so we might find joy.

The more you reflect on these truths, the deeper you’ll discover the freedom of this joy. 

The beauty of joy

This is difficult to grasp because the joy we know of today is temperamental, circumstantial and temporary. It’s unrecognizable to the gift of joy that comes from God. Earthly joy comes and goes as our dopamines spike. Which means it depends on something that is most certainly not guaranteed.

This tends to result in frustration and anxiety when we don’t have it. As soon as something doesn’t go how we want it to, our joy evaporates. Its fragile, glass-cased existence is always a whisper away from completely collapsing.

And yet with Biblical joy, it grows stronger under stress and pressure. As life throws the worst pains and unfairness, joy only increases. The beauty of who God is and the love He has for you only shines brighter when the world looks dim.

It is only this joy which outweighs our sorrows that has the potential to allow us to live differently. To overlook offenses, to praise God in the midst of suffering, to have patience and grace with our enemies.

The problem is that we’ve become so accustomed to this version of the fickle, consistent highs and lows of earthly joy that we simply don’t know what to do with Biblical joy. And we only deprive ourselves from the source of joy when we look everywhere but God to find it.

Perhaps there’s joy untapped, awaiting our discovery if we would just look for it.

God’s love is designed to be replicated. It’s contagious. It’s not meant to stop in a dead still pond but rather shared with others. It’s a gushing waterfall cascading down a never-ending mountain. 

And we all seek out love, joy and fulfillment from the world. We crave it. We all feel the desire to be fully known and fully loved. 

As our Creator, He has designed us for His love and so no other love will fit properly within us. There will always be something missing. It will always spoil, disappoint us and never fully satiate us.

We were created to be partakers of His love, therefore nothing less will do. He’s created so much more for ourselves than we could ever imagine. And yet, we seem to be quite content with our temporary joys that never suffice.

But what if there’s more, so much more waiting for us. Will you go out and find it yourself?