Real Joy in the Midst of Real Loss

Is There Reason to Rejoice?

People are hurting. There’s a good chance that you are too. If you are anything like me, joy may seem to be on short supply in your hearts right now. After all, what is worth rejoicing in during times like these?

How do I rejoice when I have been put on unpaid leave for an unknown amount of time and bills need to be paid?

How do I rejoice when I have lost a major portion of my retirement savings and I do not know how many years I will be able to support myself for?

How do I rejoice when I have had to shut down my small business?

How do I rejoice when I have to file for bankruptcy either personally or as a business?

How do I rejoice when my business has closed up shop and I’m unemployed and have children and aging parents to provide for?

How do I rejoice when I finally landed a good job a couple months ago only to be let go now?

Those are real questions from real trials and real losses that bring real fears and have the potential to snuff out any real rejoicing and lead to real despair and the loss of any hope for a better future. It is difficult to rejoice, and perhaps even harder to see why one should rejoice when it seems like you have lost or are losing everything that you have worked so hard to gain.

The Christian’s Duty in Times of Loss

The scriptures are clear that for the one who has believed in Jesus Christ as their Messiah, Savior, and Lord, there is always a reason for rejoicing – even in the most trying of times. In the most desperate of circumstances, God’s children have been given everything they need to rejoice with true joy and delight in God their Father.

The Apostle Paul exhorted the Thessalonian believers who were under “much affliction” (1 Thess 1:6) to “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess. 5:16-18).  Likewise, to the brothers and sisters in Rome, Paul encouraged them to “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer” (Rom. 12:12). The Apostle Peter also addressed believers who had been “grieved by various trials” (1 Pet 1:6) and commended them for rejoicing in the midst of greatly difficult times.

The Search for Joy

Peter knew that joy cannot simply be mustered up out of thin air. Joy is a response of great satisfaction in an object. Joy is elevated as one clings to an object that is thought to provide real benefit, help, prestige, value, safety, or reassurance. To the extent that those objects provide those things the joy is reasonable. But when those objects fail to provide the benefit sought, whether taken away or lost or destroyed or stolen or squandered, where does one go, and what cause for rejoicing do they have left?

The Joyless Cycle

There is none. Not in that object at least. So some run to other such objects that also in their time show themselves unable to deliver. Then those who ran to them feel foolish for having been tricked again and for allowing some object to get their hopes up only to dash them into pieces. Going from one insufficient object to another is devastating and joy destroying. The wise man will soon discover: trying to find lasting joy in a temporal object is a fool’s errand. It’s a vicious and futile cycle. It’s striving after the wind.

Everlasting Joy Found

What then is needed to end the joyless cycle and provide lasting joy? We need an everlasting object that delivers everlasting benefit and thus generates everlasting satisfaction and joy. We need an object that provides real and abiding help, safety, and reassurance in the face of sin and death. We need an object that is not temporal. An object that cannot fail. An object that cannot be lost. An object that cannot be destroyed. An object that will not change. An object that cannot fade. An object that cannot be taken away. If we could have an object like that then we would have a living hope. We could have real joy even in the midst of real loss.

Friends, the good news is that we can have an object like that. God intends for us to find complete and utter joy in Him! God promises to graciously save all who believe in His Son Jesus Christ by giving them eternal life and raising them from the dead to enjoy the everlasting blessing of perfect fellowship with God and man on a new earth. If you are not a believer and you are reading this, I plead with you to cling to God by faith in His Son and lay hold of an object that truly delivers everlasting benefit and joy. If you are a believer, I pray that you would overflow with joy in God and what He has given you in the gospel. All you need to begin rejoicing is to consider the permanence and perfectly secure nature of your salvation!

An Inviolable Inheritance

The Apostle Peter attempted to do exactly that by describing the believer’s salvation as a “living hope” and as “an inheritance.” It is something that causes them to rejoice now as they await to receive it and enjoy it in full as Sons of their Father in heaven. Notice how Peter describes this inheritance. He says that it is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you” (1 Pet 1:4). How extraordinary! How glorious! How utterly different and unlike the feeble and fleeting and fading and failing objects we so often find ourselves foolishly clinging to!

IMPERISHABLE

Let’s slow down and consider how Peter is describing this inheritance. Its absolutely amazing. First, Peter describes the inheritance as imperishable. What does he mean? One commentary describes this word as “not having the germs of death” (Jamieson, Fausset, & Brown), another describes that in regard to its substance it is incorruptible (Alford). Our money, our jobs, our talents, our treasures, our bodies, are perishable and corruptible. They carry in them and their systems the germs of death. Nothing that carries the germs of death and can still die is able to provide lasting benefit or satisfaction. Praise God that the inheritance we have as believers in Jesus Christ is imperishable!

UNDEFILED

But the believer’s inheritance is not just imperishable its also described as undefiled. It is completely pure and free from any stain, especially that of sin. Sin cannot work its germs of death into it because it is completely unstained from sin. Sinners cannot lay their defiled hands on it and use it in sinful ways. Nor can they steal it. It is a lasting secure pure treasure.

UNFADING

To underscore the lasting nature of the believer’s inheritance Peter also adds that it is unfading. Unlike us sinful human beings our inheritance is unfading. Peter (quoting Isaiah) describes all mankind as being “like grass and all its glory like the flower of the grass, the grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever” (1 Pet 1:24-25). We will fade away, wither, and die, but our inheritance, which is promised by the word of the Lord, will remain forever.

KEPT IN HEAVEN FOR YOU

Certainly, an inheritance that is described as imperishable, undefiled, and unfading communicates the absolute steadfastness of this inheritance. But Peter goes further. He also adds that it is “kept in heaven for you” (1:4). This inheritance is held in the safest of all places guarded by the most powerful guard that exists. As for the place – This inheritance is kept not behind the guards, military hosts, and 20 ton vault door of Fort Knox in Kentucky. It is not kept on earth but in heaven, an inconceivably greater safe haven. The believer’s inheritance is kept in a place where Jesus says “neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Matt. 6:20).  And as for the person keeping it – notice that Peter uses what many refer to as a divine passive “kept in heaven for you.” Who is doing the keeping? It doesn’t say but it’s implied that God is the one doing the keeping. The Omnipotent One Himself is guarding it in heaven for you. It’s not going anywhere. You will surely receive it.

So brothers and sisters in Christ, to summarize and also to cause you to rejoice, please lay this to heart: your salvation is an inheritance that is absolutely immutable, stored in a place that is completely impenetrable, kept for you by the One who is perfectly impregnable. Is joy beginning to well up inside you? It should!

But perhaps that joy does not well up as fast as it should or as much as it should. And perhaps its because doubts arise in your heart and you wonder how we can all really know this is the case? It seems too good to be true. But it is true. And we know it to be true because Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead.

THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST

Peter writes that believers have been “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1:3). What’s he saying? Essentially that God became a man, put on flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. He lived a perfect life unstained by sin. He died to slay death and ransom sinners through His sacrificial atoning death on the cross. Then He rose from the grave in an imperishable body in glorious victory over sin and death with absolutely no trace of the germs of death in Him! He has through His resurrection brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (2 Tim. 1:10). Jesus, in His resurrection is the first fruits of the resurrection and when He comes again from heaven to establish his kingdom on earth He will raise and bring with Him all who have believed in Him (1 Cor. 15:23-28). In other words, Christ was raised as the head of a new humanity who also will be raised from the dead to enjoy everlasting life on a new heaven and new earth. This was all proven by His own resurrection from the dead. This is no wishful thinking. This is no empty hope. It is a living hope. It is a rational hope. It is cause for great rejoicing no matter what comes our way in this life. It is a joy that comforts our souls and frees us to love and serve in sacrificial ways and like our Lord be obedient to the point of death even death on the cross!

 So rejoice. Think on those glorious realities and let joy well up in your hearts and lead you to rejoice in God and bless His holy name! No matter what you are facing in this life, it cannot rob you at all from the inestimable riches of the glorious inheritance that you have by virtue of being a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Your inheritance is safe and secure. You have real cause to rejoice even in the midst of real loss. If you find yourself running low on joy return to these verses often and consider them continually. I pray that these verses will remind you that you always have a great reason to rejoice, because you have a great God and a great Savior, and a great salvation awaiting you. May you find yourself offering praise and glory to God and inviting others to praise and glorify Him for His great mercy all the days of your life.

1 Peter 1:3-9
3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.