Calibrating for Joy

Transcribed from our YouTube video:
Calibration Cast - Episode 2 - Calibrating for Joy

In John 16 verse 24, Jesus says, “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

So there’s something that we can ask God for. Something that if we ask we WILL receive. And when we received it, it will make our joy full.

What could possibly make our joy full? 

Clearly, Jesus isn’t talking about wealth, technology, comforts or amusements. None of these things should be our treasure. None of these things can make our joy full. 

John Piper says it rightly, “we make a god out of whatever we find the most joy in.” Put another way, if these things make our joy full we’re engaged in idolatry.

Jesus wouldn’t instruct that. Remember His words in Matthew 6:25 “Life is more than food, the body is more than clothing”, or in Luke 12:15 “for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” Jesus goes one step further even calling these things “deceitful” in Mark 4:19. What they provide is, at best, illegitimate, fraudulent, and blinding.

These are the very things that throw us OUT of calibration. What Jesus says we should ask for is very specific. Jesus is calibrating our hearts for precision. The object of our joy matters.

In this particular conversation, Jesus has just told His disciples the sadness they will experience when He is crucified and buried. He says they will weep and lament. A visceral manifestation of the pain they will feel.

But Jesus clarifies that their sorrow will be turned to joy.

So, is Jesus suggesting we simply ask for joy in the midst of sadness? No. Remember, Jesus indicated there’s something specific we can ask for, and when we ask for it, we will receive it, and when we receive it, maximum joy will follow.

So, what exactly are we to ask God for?

Bear with me for a moment, because as we answer this question, we must first consider the calibration process Jesus models here. This is a process where Jesus first Diagnoses the Symptoms, then He Dispenses the Scripture, and thirdly He Dials-in the Sensors.

All of this to ensure that His disciples are both in the right position, and perceiving things correctly. Jesus said so only a few verses earlier, “These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling.” The benefits of calibration, stability.

In the previous chapter, John 15, Jesus also said “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.” The benefits of calibration, hearts that are joyful.

And so this is for us, as Christ followers, with the same tendency for misalignment, and the errors that result from being out of calibration, stumbling, not seeing things accurately, not being in the right place, not joyful.

The purpose of the Calibration Cast is to identify how social media is contributing to these misalignments in our hearts. This necessitates an increased intentionality in these calibration procedures.

So first, Jesus Diagnoses the Symptoms. 

In the disciples case the symptoms consist of “lamenting, weeping, and sorrow”. Jesus knew they would wake up to a world turned upside down, His body in a grave, their hopes shattered. For all the times Jesus told them exactly how things would unfold, the diagnosis remains unchanged. Devastation.

Life is devastating. This is Jesus acknowledging the unavoidable sadness of His death. He’s not saying don’t be sad. Christ is not diminishing the reality of heartbreak in this life, but in fact calibrating our hearts for when it comes.

Consider the symptoms of opening up Twitter and Facebook and seeing all the sadness that is going on in the world. An unending stream of discouraging, fear inducing, brokenness. No wonder they call it doom scrolling.

More so this past year. It’s been a tough year. Our diagnosis isn’t much different. 

We are finding ourselves complaining, lamenting, openly grieving on social media, at the immense sense of loss we’re experiencing, criticizing governments at what we would do better, rallying around angry protests, or at a bare minimum signing our names to petitions. 

Peter was fixated on a defeated savior, one who had surrendered to the authorities, was being beaten and humiliated. Peter took out his anger on a servant of the high priest, and later on a young girl around a fire.

Other times we find ourselves reclusive, looking for places to hide, looking for distractions to ease the pain, to numb our fears. We avoid the news, we avoid social media, we avoid reality.

In the same way, the disciples hid, abandoning Christ entirely, fixated on their fear of suffering the same fate as Jesus. And at His death, falling into a deep disillusionment and depression. The Christian is not immune to these struggles.

Judas, after realizing the gravity of his betrayal, found no solace in the 30 coins of silver and took his own life. Sadly, there are those who, over the past year, have opted out in this same way.

Mark, this is heavy. Why are you doing this to me? Why this? Why now?

Because, we too, like the disciples get fixated on the stench of death. The dreams wrapped in grave clothes. Obsessing over what a sealed tomb and a lifeless body inside must mean, and the uncontrollable fears that follow. 

Social media fixes our eyes on the tomb, it’s a firehose of discouragement and frustration. And our responses can even set off a chain reaction of despair to those around us when we’re fearful, angry or smug, and our panic, arrogance, or indignation spreads like wildfire.

The world does not see a joyful Church, they see our frustrations and anger, our critical spirits, our divisive pride, loud and obnoxious, because that’s what we share online.

In these moments, like the disciples, we are not calibrated for joy. 

And yet Jesus says we can be. We simply need to ask for one thing. “And what is that?” Hold on. We’re almost there.

To that end, Jesus Dispenses the Scripture, specifically His words, that the Spirit will remind them in the midst of this sadness, when He says in verse 13, “the Spirit of Truth will guide you in all the truth”.

This echoes what he said a few chapters earlier, that  “the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” John 14:26

The Holy Spirit and the Word of God, are precisely how to address this diagnosis. Remembering, recalling, reflecting on the words of Jesus. This is exactly what Jesus tells his disciples to do. 

So what were His words?

Well, he said their agony over his death will be temporary.

“A little while, and you will no longer see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me.” John 16:16

In this same way, Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 4:17 that these hardships of life are a “light momentary affliction”

But remembering these words was not enough for the disciples, and in the midst of the storms of life, we have no patience for what “temporary” or “momentary” actually means. When someone says “this too shall pass” we nod our heads, but our hearts feel patronized.

There’s something Jesus said that we’re still not remembering.

This is where Jesus Dials-in the Sensors. Where He tells them exactly what to ask for to calibrate their hearts for joy. It’s a highly precise calibration. Did you catch it?

Listen to what He says, in verse 22:

“Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.” John 16:22

What is it he says will cause their heart to rejoice? That’s right. Seeing Jesus again. 

That’s why he concludes a few verses later with the admonishment to “ask and receive, that your joy may be full.”

Seeing Jesus is the only legitimate source of joy. There’s nothing else God can give you that will legitimately make your joy full, and God’s not interested in illegitimate joy.

So, we are to ask God to see Jesus, for glimpses of His servant humility, His extravagant love, His long-suffering patience, His risen glory.

And when we see Jesus, we are brought into His presence where, as the Psalmist puts it, “there is the fullness of joy.” Psalm 16:11 Our joy is made full.

The Psalmist continues, “at God’s right hand are pleasures forevermore”. And we know that Jesus himself is at God’s right hand, and so not only is our joy made full in seeing Jesus, our joy is forevermore being where He is. Jesus put it this way, “and no one will take your joy from you.” Joy unending, joy inseparable.

In the book of Hebrews we are told to, “fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despised the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2)

The joy of Jesus was his fixation on something to come. His eyes were not fixated on the suffering or the shame of the cross, but on the future glory. Jesus’ heart was calibrated for God’s glory, the joy set before him.

John Piper writes, “Joy is the clearest witness to the worth of what we enjoy. It’s the deepest reverberation in the heart of man of the value of God’s glory” ¹

Echoing the prophet Nehemiah, Jesus is admonishing his disciples, he’s admonishing us, to “not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” Nehemiah 8:10b

Fixing our eyes on Jesus and reflecting on the things that bring Him joy, is our strength.

Our response to the sadness, the fears, the frustrations, and the triggering angers of life, is to look to Jesus, and truly see Him.

And while social media is designed to keep us somewhere between the frantic and the fearful, the angry and the outraged, we must fix our eyes on Jesus, and if we are not seeing Him, to ask, because when we ask, we will receive, and when we receive, when we see Him, and our joy will be made full.

¹ Joy and the Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World,” in The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World, 78