We do not often think of Jesus as being supremely happy. The Bible teaches us to regard and understand His coming as fulfilling the prophecy through Isaiah that He would be "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (53:3f.). He had to suffer in a way and degree beyond our ability to imagine in order to be our Savior. Our believing and confessing that, however, should not lead us to overlook (as I fear it sometimes does) the fact that He was also a uniquely happy person. Hebrews 12:2 even relates that happiness to His suffering, saying that He "for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame." He willingly underwent the suffering and sorrow to save a lost world of lost mankind. In the text just cited (and again in two chapters later) He stressed the fact that He was saving them (1) to make them share in His joy, and (2) to do that completely. To properly understand and profit by this extraordinary promise of complete joy, we have to resist a rather common temptation to make of it a motto that anyone can apply anywhere. Whenever we do that we usually misread the Bible and make it say things that are not true. The Apostle Paul called that "using the word of God deceitfully" (2 Cor. 4:2).

The Lord's gospel says plainly that the complete happiness He promises comes only in a very intimate personal rela­tionship with Himself.

Otherwise it is impossible. "If I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned" (vv. 5, 6). Let's lis­ten closely and carefully to His words as He speaks of The Way to Complete Joy. He speaks of (1) Himself as the only source of this joy, and of (2) how we must share in it.

1. Christ Its Only Source⤒🔗

The Lord speaks of joy as His own possession. As far as the world is concerned, He has a monopoly on it. That might startle us, but it shouldn't surprise us. Think of the end of the inspired 16^th Psalm. "You will show me the path of life; In your presence is fullness of joy; At your right hand are pleas­ures forevermore." Psalm 45:7 promises the coming Messiah, "You love righteousness and hate wickedness: Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions."

Why is human life so lacking in real happiness or joy? The Bible shows us that all of our multiplying human miseries, sufferings and sorrows can be traced back to sin, our human revolt against and resulting separation from God. God originally warned and all of human history illustrates that "to live apart from God is death." Continuing on that course leads to the final "weeping and gnashing of teeth" that Jesus described as characterizing hell.

Christ was promised and came as the Savior to take upon Himself our sin and mis­ery. He "suffered for our sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3:18). In bringing us back to God through believing in Himself, He "makes us alive" (Eph. 2:5), and He makes us share in His joy. Thus, He is for us the Source, the only Source and Giver of joy!

Furthermore, this text says not merely that He gives us a little or some, occasional joy. The joy that He gives is to be and become complete, total! This does not mean that the Christian believer, on coming to know Christ, is suddenly made completely and totally happy. Some eager evangelists may give that impression. Then the new believer, expecting immediate, total, unmixed happiness, is soon disappointed and disillusioned by encountering continuing problems. The Lord Himself forewarned every follower, "In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). The joy that He promises is not an immediate total gift, but it is to be made complete in a continuing lifelong process of growing. We need to look at that process and how He shows us that we must share in it.

2. How We Must Share In It←⤒🔗

(a) By Mean of His Word. We read in the text, "I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete" or as an older translation puts it more literally and emphatically, "These things I have spoken to you..." this joy is passed on to us BY HIS WORDS! The importance of that is highlighted especially in our time because many are saying that we must stop making so much of the "words." The public is no longer impressed by or inter­ested in words. Today people want to see and experience — we have the miracles of modern TV and multimedia. Mere words turn people off. We'd better wake up and move with the times and use newer, more appealing ways to communicate, if we expect anybody to listen. How plausible that sounds, the Lord taught us that that is a trap to mislead us. There is nothing new about it. Jesus' hearers too were turned off by talk and wanted to see big demonstrations, but the Lord refused to listen to them, and warned them that they had to get to know Him by His words. His words about real life and joy showed the difference between the real thing and a multitude of frauds. He predicted that there would be false "Christs", posing as Himself. That is the way it was and still is. We must get to know the real Savior by His words or we don't really know Him at all. The Lord's warnings about living by His words if we are to have real life and joy, and the many sick and dying churches of today who do not live in that way, both show how important that continues to be.

(b) Christ's Words Lead Us To Himself. They, as Paul wrote, "are able to make us wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 3:15). He only can give us life, and we are to get to know Him truly through His word. He said, "I am the vine, you are the branches...without me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he...is withered." We are "made alive" only "together with Him" (Eph. 2:5).

(c) We are to Receive Life from Him through Praying to Him. He said, (v. 7), "If you abide in Me, and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you." From the Lord's side, He leads us to know Him and turn to Him through His Word, and He teaches us to receive life and joy from Him through praying to Him. "Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Romans 10:13).

From the words, "Ask what you desire and it shall be done for you," we might conclude that this is an unlimited promise to give us anything we ask. It has sometimes been taken up in that way. But only when we observe the condition, can we expect such answers. That condition is, "If you abide in Me and My words abide in you..." To the extent that we live and are guided in our ask­ing by what the Lord has told us, that promise is assured. The Apostle Paul, regarding that promise in Eph. 3:20, 21, stretched the limits of human language almost to the break­ing point as he wrote, "Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be the glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end."

(d) The Joy is Realized in Fruitful Living. The Lord, by relating us to Himself, does not save us just for our own enjoyment. He said, "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit." "I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain." A vine grows and is trimmed to produce fruit. Christ saves us to enlist us in His saving business. We are, as the title of a little catechism booklet said, "saved to serve" Him. That means that we have to follow His directions. "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to, you that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full" (vv. 10, 11). Our sharing His happiness comes as we are put to work with Him. He said, "No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his mas­ter is doing; but I have called you friends." "You are My friends if you do what I command you." Happiness is a by-product of such fellowship in serving the Lord.

Especially in our affluent times, almost everyone is looking for happi­ness. We claim the pursuit of happiness as a con­stitutional right. That kind of search, as long as one pursues it in revolt against God, is always frustrating. One never finds what he is seeking. The story of that frustration, told in the beginning of Ecclesiastes, is endlessly repeated. C.S. Lewis in his Pilgrim's Regress wrote about the frustrations of that long and futile search. The story of his conversion, he tells in his autobiography which he entitled, Surprised by Joy. As he was brought back to God, no longer trying feverishly to find joy, he was amazed to discover that he had it! Our Savior puts us back into the living relationship with and service of God for which we were designed and created. In that return to God and to life, is the end of "the elusive search for happiness." It is "the chief end of man!" There is no satisfaction and happiness that can be compared with it.

Enlistment by the Lord in His service, far from being easy and trouble-free, involves us in plenty of hard work, effort and struggle. In fact, it puts us with Christ in the middle of total war.

From time to time we are reminded of the long, costly and anxious times of World War II. The first years of that war were increasingly gloomy and depressing, as it long seemed that nothing could stop the onward march of those who were determined to enslave the world to their inhuman and anti-Christian power. Month after month General Rommel's irresistible tank corps rolled on across the whole of North Africa, and a bedraggled, often defeated and discouraged British army was crowded against the bor­ders of Egypt. Then there came a change of command and that hopeless 8^th Army got a new commanding general. He was a funny looking little man named Bernard Montgomery. On taking command of what had appeared an army of los­ers, he carefully studied their situation and did something that no other top general would think of doing. He arranged to talk, group by group, with all of the thousands of soldiers in his army explaining to them simply and clearly what they had to do, how he proposed to do it and what each of those soldiers had to try to do. He assured them that he would try to provide them with everything that they would need, that he would not endanger their lives unless he had to, and would provide them with the best medical care if there was trou­ble. Himself daily reading the Bible, he advised his troops to do the same and to ask God to guide their efforts. As they fought and won the hard but decisive battle at Egypt's border an then began to roll back the German tanks to further defeats across 1,200 miles of North Africa, an amazing change came over that discouraged 8^th army. They became the highest-spirited and most enthusiastic army to be found on either side in the prolonged war. When a battle threatened, nobody wanted to report to sick bay and miss the action. General Montgomery could riot always live up to the role he tried to fill. No one could. But we as Christians should remember that what he could not do, our Lord Christ promises and goes on to do completely in the much bigger war in which He has put us. "From victory unto victory, His army shall He lead till every foe is vanquished and Christ is Lord indeed!" The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church (2 Cor. 2:14), "Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place." The Lord in saving us enlists us in the toughest, biggest and most thrilling enterprise in the world, that of His gospel and kingdom. He said, "I have told you this that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete." Are we praying and working to have a part, as big a part as possible in that action?