Does God's Smile Really Matter To
Us?
"So how do I get this elusive Joy of the Lord that
comes from the smile of God? What do I have to do?"
People keep asking, and we will try again. God's joy is not on the open market. It is therefore not obtainable "for a consideration." On the other hand we can have it without even lifting a finger or holding out a hand, because it is already with us and within us. How much does an attitude weigh? How much muscular effort does it take to smile?
In Psalm 40:8 we read this expression: "I delight to do Your will O my God." Point of order — What is God's will? Jesus said God wants us to spread the gospel of love, to carry it into all the world. All right, let's suppose we try to do that quite apart from joy. We will take no spiritual joy in sharing the gospel, and no delight in helping people to come out of sin's broom closet and start to breathe the fresh air of salvation in Christ. How will that work?
We can find out quickly by looking at the efforts of two Bible teachers in Scripture, one a prophet and the other an apostle. These two individuals were both Hebrews. Jonah was a prophet in the Old Testament. Paul wrote nearly two-fifths of the New Testament. Both men were brought up in the fear of God, and both were commissioned by God to execute His wishes. Each fulfilled his assignment with distinction. And similarities.
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The book of Jonah tells us that the prophet did not like his orders. God told him to warn the people of Nineveh of His coming judgment and to call them to repent of their sins. He rejected the order, tried to evade it, but God eventually forced him against his will to discharge his duty.
The book of Acts tells us that Paul, a brand-new convert was called by God to carry the good news of Jesus Christ to "Gentiles" and "Kings" as well as to the people of Israel. Linguistically prepared in both the Greek and Aramaic languages as well as in Hebrew, he accepted the commission with joy.
Jonah tried to evade his orders by skipping town. He embarked on a ship bound for Tarshish as a paid passenger. But when a storm arose at sea, the crew pinned the blame on Jonah — correctly. At his own suggestion, they threw him overboard and the storm subsided. A very large specimen of Mediterranean sea life then delivered the prophet to a Palestinian beach. In due course he received the same orders a second time.
Paul the apostle proceeded to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ on two continents with remarkable success. He did it by working with teams of men and women of many different languages and backgrounds. He established the church of Jesus Christ in cities where every other religion had failed to attract, and where it is alive and flourishing today. Paul may not have drawn the crowds that Jonah did in Nineveh, but the adventure of his travel itinerary has never been matched, his ministry continues to flourish, and for 2000 years his name has been honored and his gospel accepted with joy by millions of readers of the New Testament.
Jonah did effective work in Nineveh, that Assyrian capital, with amazing spiritual results, but he labored alone and definitely did not enjoy either his work or its results, since Israel considered Assyria its mortal enemy. When God found that the
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people of Nineveh were repenting as a result of Jonah's preaching. He lifted His judgment and spared the city. This so angered Jonah that he wished he were dead.
PREACHING GOD'S SMILE
So here were these two men, both sent by God, both working with people of different nationalities and tongues, both achieving positive results. What made the difference?
Jonah considered the assignment a burden. He tried hard to get out of it, and when he did preach in Nineveh, he disliked the bountiful results of God's smile upon the Ninevites. Because he wanted that smile for no other people than his own, he was not able to share in God's joy over the city's repentance.
Paul found the work in Asia exciting. He loved it, and he loved the people. He was convinced that God's smile mattered to him and to everyone he met. The book of Acts records that when Paul and his companion Barnabas were leaving Antioch in Pisidia, they left behind as the fruit of their ministry new disciples, new converts, new Jewish and Gentile Christians. And how did the team feel about their work? "The disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit."
When the two missionaries reached Lystra, an uproarious scene developed after God used Paul to heal a man with crippled feet. Lystra being an Asian city traditionally devoted to the pagan Greek gods, the people looked upon Barnabas as Zeus in human form, and they supposed Paul to be Hermes, the messenger of gods. The temple priest ordered bulls and garlands brought to the city gates and encouraged the crowd to offer sacrifices to the men. Barnabas and Paul were hard put to prove their humanity, but in doing so, they preached the good news of the kingdom and told the Lycaonians that God not only provided them with seasonal rains and food, but He also "fills your hearts with joy."
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Later, when Paul and Silas sailed across to Macedonia to plant the gospel in Europe, they ran into fresh opposition and suddenly found themselves in a jail in Philippi, after having been soundly whipped. At midnight they were still wide awake and no doubt in pain, but were overflowing with joy by the hymns and spiritual songs that amazed and entertained the other prisoners. What ebullience! What dauntless spirits! These two men exhibited an invincible quality of life that has always been characteristic of Christianity at its best — a quality which most certainly radiates the attitude of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
Some scholars still claim that Paul had no sense of humor, but it seems to me that is exactly what he did have, spilling over. Tell me, what kind of man would put his life at deadly risk again and again in hostile foreign countries if he didn't have to? The only answer I know is, either he is a complete idiot, or else a Christian missionary who is committed to his Lord, who knows that the smile of God matters to the human race, and who is filled with the same lightness of heart and overflowing joy that spills across so many pages of the New Testament.
Think again of Paul and Silas in that Philippian jail, singing praises in the darkness. When an earthquake shook the jail into rubble and the frightened jailer wanted to kill himself, Paul and Silas told him to stop, that nobody in his prison wanted to escape. Their conduct so impressed the jailer that he asked them how he could be saved. They told him. He was convinced, converted, and baptized, and before the night ended the jailer had fed Paul and Silas and had attended to the same wounds that he, possibly, had ordered inflicted. And how did the jailer feel about his demolished calaboose? We don't know. How did his family feel about the earthquake? We don't know that either. All we are told is that God filled the whole family with joy because they had come to believe in Him.
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If that were not enough, when morning came and the city magistrate ordered Paul and Silas released, they refused to go without an official escort. They announced that they were Roman citizens, which exempted them from brutality and harassment from the local constabulary. A beautiful touch! The bureaucracy panicked and dispatched an official escort to the jail. As Halford Luccock expressed it, "With sore backs and heads held high" (and no doubt with smiles on their faces) the two ambassadors of the Lord strode out through the broken prison gates of Philippi and into the chronicles of sacred history. God, too, was smiling.
Nearly everywhere Paul took the gospel, whether to Pisidian, Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, Thessalonica, Derbe, Corinth, Berea, Ephesus, or Jerusalem, uproar resulted. Yet the man himself seemed to be in the eye of the hurricane, untroubled in spirit, "Keep up your courage," he told the half-drowned sailors aboard the foundering ship that held him prisoner. "Get something to eat. You're going to survive, all of you."
On the island of Malta after the shipwreck, when a poisonous snake bit him on the hand, Paul casually shook it off into the fire. When he reached Italy, a delegation of Christians met him. They had traveled 43 miles from Rome to greet him at the marketplace of Appius. In response, Paul gave thanks to God for them and told them to take courage.
In a letter to the Christians of Corinth, Paul expressed his feelings and those of his companions vividly:
We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body... [We are] sorrowful, yet always rejoicing... In all our troubles my joy knows no bounds.
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Joy! It is the one key word that distinguished the authentic Paul from all the spurious and imitative letters attributed to him in the early centuries of the Christian era. Paul wrote again and again of his inner joy; his imitators did not.
How then do we "get" the Joy of the Lord? How do we come to bask in God's smile? We have seen that Paul the apostle had that joy; Jonah the prophet did not. Paul was convinced that God's smile of love upon all mankind mattered; Jonah kept that smile to himself. So we see that Paul did not "get" the joy — he took it with him, and gave away his joy and the warmth of God's smile everywhere he went. This made his ministry doubly effective. He both glorified God and enjoyed Him. A Jew from a foreign land (Israel), a one-time persecutor and no doubt killer of Christians, Paul won his way into the heart of people all over Asia Minor and Greece with his cheerful, friendly approach and his indomitable Spirit of love in Christ.
When people embrace Jesus Christ, something mysterious rubs off. What is it? Can you define it? Can you examine it under a microscope? It's not just a metaphor or some other figure of speech, because it is real. It seems to be something that goes along with these people, and yet they may not be aware of it. Dogmatically it could be called the sanctifying grace of God. Emotionally it is a sweet memory of close contact with the Savior. Volitionally it is a powerful force, for it sets the human will on fire. Scientifically it cannot be seen under the microscope, but it is there and it is real.
This mysterious rub-off is the Joy of the Lord, a gift of the Holy Spirit. It is a glorious, unbounded pleasure and gladness that comes straight from the smiling God Himself. When we share the love of Jesus with others, we give it away, and it comes back to us in full measure. Then we have it, cake and frosting too. Hallelujah!
