I wondered whether I believe that.
It must be true.
Romans 8:31 says, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" It's a rhetorical question. It means: "Since God is for us, no power can prevail against us."
We know that God is for us. But does that mean He is for our joy?
I think it does. Jesus said, "I have told you this so that my joy may in you, and that your joy might be complete." (John 15:11)
Apparently Jesus--who is for us, on our side--aims for His joy to fill us in order to complete our joy. To that end, He told us something... "I have told you this so that my joy might be in you, and your joy might be complete."
What did Jesus tell us would fulfill our joy? To find out, we must go back two verses:
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.
Now remain in my love.
(John 15:9)
We will experience joy when we know the love of God and remain in it.
How do we do that? Jesus tells us. Jesus does not want to make this hard for us, so He tells us:
If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in His love.
(John 15:10)
And what are the commands we are to obey?
Throughout the New Testament, the Apostle Paul makes such a big deal about not being under the Law, we sometimes think it doesn't matter what choices we make or how we behave. Paul was trying to help Jewish believers break free from the legalistic self-righteousness that they had come to depend on, following hundreds of picky rules developed as corollaries to the Law of Moses. Paul was trying to help Jewish believers understand that the righteousness they could attain through the Law was only a pale substitute for the true righteousness that Jesus had bought for them with His blood, the righteousness Jesus empowers us to experience through the indwelling presence of His own Holy Spirit in our hearts.
For clarification, we need to look at what Jesus said about this. The teaching of Jesus stands over the teaching of Paul. Jesus is God, and Paul was merely an apostle. So, if something seems not to agree between what Jesus said and what Paul said, we always obey Jesus first, and then work to fit what Paul told us into the parameters previously given by Christ.
Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Matthew 22:37-39)
Jesus was not saying that we don't have to obey the Law and the Prophets. Earlier, He had said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them." (Matthew 5:17) I might add, for clarification, that Jesus not only came to fulfill the law, but also to give us the capacity to keep the law by becoming truly righteous in love. When we love God with all our hearts, and we love our neighbors as ourselves, we will live in righteousness . . . "that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us," writes Paul (Romans 8:4).
Jesus did not come to say that righteousness does not matter! Righteousness absolutely matters.
He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree,
so that we might die to sins
and live for righteousness;
by His wounds you have been healed.
(1 Peter 2:24)
Jesus came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets, to provide the true and complete remedy for sin and make us truly righteous, from the inside out, transforming our hearts by His Spirit. (See Ezekiel 36:26-27)
The Mosaic Law was a temporary measure to provide a form of righteousness that would show us the difference between righteousness and sin. Additionally, keeping the Law provided protection from some of the immediate effects of sin, in surprisingly practical ways, until the real cure (the atoning work of Christ) came to pass.
Humanity was utterly unable to live in obedience to the Law before the ministry of Christ. The Old Testament demonstrates this over and over, and the Apostle Paul shows it again in Romans 7 when he brings up the question of coveting. "Do not covet," says the tenth commandment. So, assuming you were actually able to successfully obey all of the previous nine commandments (crazy assumption), you still come upon the tenth: "Do not covet." Don't think about wanting anything that someone else has. That's impossible. Flat impossible.
The only way you can keep from coveting is (1) to trust that God loves you perfectly and is faithful to provide everything you need, and (2) to be more interested in the good of others than in your own good, so when other people receive something that you don't have, you simply rejoice that God has blessed them, and turn back in trust towards God, waiting for Him to meet your needs, according to His wisdom and grace, and believing that He will.
In other words: love God and love your neighbors. If you do, you are keeping Jesus' commands. He promised that if we keep His commands--loving God and loving our neighbors--we will remain in His love, and our joy will be complete. But remaining in His love is the secret. We need to abide in the Holy Spirit and welcome the Holy Spirit to abide in us. Without Him, we can do nothing (John 15:5).
You will be able to love God and selflessly serve others if--and only if--the Holy Spirit restores your heart, and He abides in you, and you abide in Him.
It's kind of simple, yet tremendously difficult. He does virtually all of it, but we must surrender to His work.
Yes, God is for my joy. He knows what will bring me joy. However, until I undergo some holy renovation, the things I think will bring me joy are probably not exactly what God knows will bring me joy. Therein lies the rub, the hurdle that so many of us struggle to clear.
God is for my joy, and I need to humble myself to trust Him with this.
My joy will be wrapped up in loving God and loving my neighbors.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Philippians 4:13
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