As a fruit of the Holy Spirit, joy is a virtue that every Christian must cultivate. Yet true joy involves much more than putting on a happy face. Today, R.C. Sproul reflects on the biblical characteristics of a joyful life. Request R.C. Sproul’s devotional The Advent of Glory, his book Can I Have Joy in My Life?, and lifetime digital access to his teaching series Joy—all for your donation of any amount: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/3710/joy Meet Today’s Teacher: R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was known for his ability to winsomely and clearly communicate deep, practical truths from God’s Word. He was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine. Meet the Host: Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, host of the Ask Ligonier podcast, and a graduate of Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Nathan joined Ligonier in 2012 and lives in Central Florida with his wife and four children. Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
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It is the Christian's duty. It is the Christian's moral obligation to be joyful. And the failure of the Christian to be a joyful person is sin.
Since Scripture commands us to rejoice, joy is a duty for the Christian. But how can that be, especially when Scripture also commands us to weep with those who weep? Joy will be our theme this week on Renewing Your Mind, so be sure to listen every day.
To help you study the topic of joy further and prepare for the Christmas season, when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org, we'll send you Dr. Sproul's title, Can I Have Joy in My Life?, and his Christmas devotional, The Advent of Glory, while also giving you lifetime digital access to this series on joy.
So give your gift today at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes. In an anxious world, how can the Christian have joy and obey the command to rejoice always? Here's Dr. Sproul.
Today we're going to be looking at the biblical theme of joy. It's a word that occurs over and over and over again in the Scriptures, not only in the New Testament, but for example, the Psalms are filled with reference to joy and to rejoicing. I'm particularly interested in this concept of joy because it is numbered in the list of
that Paul gives in Galatians of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, so that we see that joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit and that joy is a Christian virtue. Now that may sound somewhat strange to our ears today. Sometimes we struggle with the relationship between how joy or happiness is defined and described in our culture and how joy is articulated in the Bible.
I know that one of the common methods of interpreting or translating Jesus' teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is to take the traditional language of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says, blessed are the poor, or blessed are those who mourn, or blessed are those who hunger and thirst at the righteousness, and so on, to translate that in the modern vernacular by saying, happy are those who are the peacemakers, or so on.
And I always kind of cringe when I see those modern renditions, not because I'm opposed to happiness, but because that term happy in our culture has been so sentimentalized and trivialized and is so superficial in so many of the statements that we hear about it.
You remember the statement that was made famous a few years ago, happiness is a warm puppy, or the adage or maxim that's become part of our folk wisdom in the last few years, don't worry. be happy. And it kind of suggests a kind of carefree, cavalier attitude of delight. Whereas in the New Testament, particularly in the Beatitudes, the word there is not happy, it is blessed. And
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