What has happened to all your joy?

That phrase has stuck with me in the last few weeks since preaching on Galatians 4:8-20, it is the question which the horrified Apostle Paul asks the wandering and bewitched Galatian Churches as he looks at how far they have fallen since they first came to faith.  I can't help thinking it is a great question which the church in Britain, our congregations and we ought to be asking ourselves.

Joy doesn't characterise us, if you asked 50 people to say what word sprang to mind when they hear the word Christian I'm not sure joy, joyful, enjoying life would feature at all.  And yet that is what Paul remembers about how he left the Galatians, they were a joyful people, they were a people who knew and enjoyed God, who revelled in what Jesus had done for them by grace.

Before I go any further perhaps a definition of joy will help: joy is the experience of gladness or happiness not in plans, possessions, people or circumstances but in God. It flows out of understanding who God has made us to be in Jesus by faith.  That I am a son of God, an heir of life, in whom God the Spirit dwells, who has the family DNA, and is secure in what Christ has done.

If we are not joyful is it because we have forgotten who we are and all the great priviledges that are ours in Christ.  Many translations translate that question 'what has happened to your joy?' as 'what has happened to the blessedness you felt?'  That is part of the problem we don't count our blessings, we forget the joy that is ours.

There are lots of reasons for this; the wonder of the gospel becomes normal unless we continually seek to refresh ourselves in it, we find ourselves lulled into a life of church-ianity rather than a vivid life enriching following of Jesus, we become to-do list focused, we feel we must contribute, we absorb the worlds message which is not thankfulness but you haven't got everything you could have yet, so strive don't be content!

Where is all our joy?  It is found, and rediscovered daily, in the wonder of the grace of our Saviour who died for us, and in a growing appreciation and joyful realisation of all that is ours in him.