LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 99

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Does God want you to have joy? A few weeks ago, I was
riding in the van with my wife and three of our children,
and I asked them that question. True or False, I said:
God wants us to be happy. God wants us to have joy.
And they took a minute to think about it. And they gave
varied answers, and varied explanations for their
answers. All of their explanations made sense and had
a certain truth to them. The will of God is a complex
topic, especially as it relates to human suffering and
human happiness in this world. But I suggest to you
this morning that we should not hesitate to believe and
to confess that God does indeed want us to be joyful.
Joy is the will of God. Sometimes we look at the world
around us, sometimes we look at our lives, we look at
the struggles of those we love, and we wonder. And we
know that God indeed sends trials, and it is God
Himself who sends calamities, disasters, bad things,
sufferings, pains, griefs. God sends them. And yet, by
faith, because His Word declares it to be so, we trust
that joy — joy! and not grief — is the will of God. And
what a joyous article of faith that is, that God desires
joy for us and for those we love. Don’t doubt it!
Even in Lamentations, as the people grieved the utter
devastation of Jerusalem and the Temple of God, faith
declared, “Though he cause grief, he will have
compassion according to the abundance of his
steadfast love; for he does not afflict or grieve the
children of men from his heart” (Lam. 3:32–33). Yes, God
allows pain and grief. He Himself brings these things.
But not from his heart: “lo’ millibbô,” not from his heart.
The heart of God, the ultimate will of God for us, is not
our sorrow, but our joy.
Luther saw testimony to this truth both in creation and
in redemption, in both the First and the Second Articles
of the Creed. “God wants us to be cheerful,” Luther
said, “and He hates sadness. For had He wanted us to
be sad, He would not have given us the sun, the moon,
and the various fruits of the earth. All these He gave us
for our good cheer.” 7 Elsewhere, commenting on
Galatians, Luther writes: “God loveth not heaviness …
He hateth … heavy and sorrowful cogitations and
loveth cheerful hearts. For therefore hath He sent His
Son … to cheer up our souls in Him.” 8
2. TRUE JOY IS GIVEN IN CHRIST JESUS
This brings us to the second point: True joy is given in
Christ Jesus. Nothing in our Lutheran doctrinal heritage
could be more emphatic than this. As Herb Mueller said
yesterday, “God counts me righteous for the sake of
Christ. This is the center around which everything turns,
the source of everlasting, never ending joy.”
Convention Essays

Now I’m not sure who is more Lutheran — Herb, or
Martin Luther — but Luther says much the same thing
about justification and joy. He writes in the Large
Catechism: “A confident and joyful heart can spring
from nothing else than the certain knowledge of the
forgiveness of sins.” 9 Commenting on Paul’s
exhortation in Philippians 4 to “rejoice in the Lord
always,” Luther writes, “[Paul] … says that there should
be joy at all times …. He has good reason to say that, for
who can cause pain or suffering to someone who has a
gracious God? Sin does nothing to him, death does
nothing, hell does nothing …. It is certainly true that sin
naturally brings with it sorrow and a fearful
conscience, and we cannot always be without sin, but
we should nevertheless let joy rule and let Christ be
greater than our sin.”10
And already in his 1518 elaboration of The Ninety-Five
Theses, Luther could write: “This is the confidence of
Christians and the joyousness of our conscience: that
through faith our sins become, not ours but Christ’s,
upon whom God laid the sins of us all and who bore our
sins (Is. 53:6) …. All the righteousness of Christ, in turn,
becomes ours. For He places His hand upon us, and it is
well with us!” 11
Yes, true joy is given in Christ Jesus. Just think for a
moment about Christ’s earthly ministry. The joy He
brought to so many. The joy of leprosy cleansed! The joy
of release from evil spirits! The joy of seeing a dead child
awaken to life! But the greatest and most lasting joy
given in Christ Jesus flows forth from His blood-stained
cross and from His empty tomb.
A true and lasting joy has come into the world with the
resurrection of our crucified Lord. Imagine the joy of
Mary Magdalene in the garden outside Jesus’ tomb,
when one moment she was weeping and the next she
was hearing her name — “Mary” — and there stood her
dear Jesus, alive again. John writes that when the
disciples saw the risen Lord, His hands and His side,
“they were glad” — surely one of the greatest
understatements in the Bible! The night of His betrayal,
Jesus had promised His disciples, “I will see you again,
and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your
joy from you” (John 16:22).
It is in this resurrection light that we can “rejoice,
always.” As Luther writes, “The devil is the spirit of
sadness, but God is the Spirit of joy, who saves us. We
have more occasion for joy than for sadness; for we
believe in the living God, and Christ lives, and we shall
live also.” 12
Soon Jesus will come again, to raise us and all the dead,
and to give eternal life to us and all believers. It will be
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2019 (67TH) LCMS CONVENTION | 99