The Fruit of the Joy: Part 1
by Daniel Burton
With the fruit of love being the leading fruit for the Spirit filled Christian, Paul continues that those claiming they are filled with the Spirit also display joy as an outward expression of the Spirit within them. A person who has no joy cannot rightly be said to be a Spirit filled individual. Yet, for all of our preconceived notions and ideas of joy, there is a misunderstanding of what it means to be filled with joy. Some mistake it that a person of faith must be smiling at all times in order to be joyful, to the dismay of the melancholic personalities. Smiling does not necessarily equate to joy, although it my certainly be expressed as such. Joy, rather than a temporary feeling is a longstanding state. Furthermore, this status is cementing by the work of Jesus Christ. Joy is not temporary. Joy is a lasting state because the works of Christ are cemented and secured.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
The Source of Joy
We were dead in our sin, plain and simple. Yet, God did not even for a moment consider standing back and allowing His people to perish. God, at just the right time, sent Jesus Christ to die on a cross a sinners death, a punishment we deserved. Jesus’ sacrificial gift paved a way for our salvation even when we were against God. 
The love that the Father gave the Son has been given to us. Nothing we did merited that gift of salvation and love and nothing we do can disqualify us from that same love. The outpouring of God’s love on His people lays the foundation for the joy we experience in the fullness of
Joy, then, comes from our status change of having been loosed from the grips of death. We are joyful, not just for a season or moment, but through everything we face and endure because we have been saved. Nothing, neither physical or spiritual can rend us from our relationship with Jesus Christ. Therefore, be joyful! Where happiness is temporary, joy, when rooted in the Spirit’s transformation of our lives, remains a permanent feature simply because the victory of Christ is permanent. There is no change in status when our names are written in the book of Life and we can continually remain joyful in all things.
So That The World May See Our Joy
For Joy to be complete, it must be expressed. In John’s Gospel, Jesus ties our expression of our faith to our joy being complete. In essence, we are unable to contain the joy that God is attempting to well up inside us. There is more joy than our bodies are able to handle and must be expressed in our work. Furthermore, this expression of joy comes from hearing and obeying the word of God for what it is; the divinely inspired word of God. It is foolish to think that we can contain the Spirit within ourselves without any outward effect occurring. Similarly, it is foolish to think the Spirit inside of us changes nothing.
The world will see the joy as it overflows out of us. The world will experience the joy we have received in Jesus Christ. We follow and obey Christ, not in an effort to be loved by God, but because the joy has been made complete in us to express itself through every pour of our being. In joy, we keep the commands because we know that we were rescued from our lawlessness. In joy, we give freely of ourselves to those around us because we know that Christ sacrificed Himself for us. In joy, we seek to display the triumph of God over sin through how we live our lives. We are filled with joy to the point of overflowing because Jesus Christ reigns victorious over all things.
For more in this series, check out The Fruit of the Spirit
