The Danger of Joyless Discipleship

In my experience, when people talk about discipleship and formation, I hear a lot of attention given to things like love, obedience, spiritual practices like prayer and Scripture reading, and even leadership in discipling others.

Please hear me: these are all beautiful things! Authentic discipleship to Jesus does not exist without them.

But there is one thing I don’t hear a lot of… joy.

Have you ever noticed that?

Joy and delight may be lightly touched on, but they are rarely treated as core aspects of becoming a disciple of Jesus.

But what if joy is more important than we maybe give it credit for?

Jesus Himself says,

“I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”

John 15:11

According to Jesus, joy is pretty important. It’s one of His core desires for our relationship with Him.

Joyless discipleship is, then, in many ways, a contradiction in terms. A disciple of Jesus should increasingly become a person who delights in the Father, the Son, the Spirit, the Scriptures, the kingdom, and even obedience itself.

Disciples should never stop increasing in joy and delight. This is why you can usually tell that someone has been a follower of Jesus for a long time by how joyful they are.

I’ve seen it firsthand; my great-aunt is one of the most joy-filled people I have ever met. She’s in her eighties now and has seen many of her friends and family pass away over the last decade. And yet, you can’t have a conversation with her without her talking about how good God is and how much she loves Him. Every time she says it, the thought of Christ brings her to tears and laughter. Her joy is complete.

So perhaps we need to ask ourselves something:

Is the joy of Christ in me?

Is my joy becoming complete?

Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18,

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

The will of God is to rejoice always, to pray without ceasing, and to give thanks in all circumstances.

God’s desire is for our joy to be made complete in Christ.

So let me take a moment to remind you of the joy of our salvation and the kingdom we have been invited to build with God. I doubt any of this is new information, but I invite you to read with fresh eyes the reality and joy of these statements:

• You have been saved and set free from your sins and the shame that comes with them.
• You are the delight of the Most High God, the child of a Father who loves you deeper than you can fathom.
• You are free from fear; Jesus has brought a love that casts it out because its safety goes beyond anything in existence.
• You have been given the joyous task of sharing truly wonderful news with people and inviting them to live a life with God.
• You believe in the resurrection of the dead! There will be a day when Jesus returns and raises us into eternal joy and glory.

These can be statements of doctrine, or they can be proclamations of joy.

This should drastically change the way you view the world. The way you view conflict and difficulty. The way you view pain. The way you view evangelism and disciple-making. This should change everything.

For the disciple, the joy of the Gospel is the source of an unwavering confidence and perseverance.

So, I invite you to lean into the joy of discipleship. I promise you will notice a difference in your confidence, your awareness of the work of God, your compassion toward people, and your perseverance through hardship.

If that is difficult, ask the Lord to help you.

Ask Him to help you view the Gospel as a source of joy.

Practice gratitude.

Do something you enjoy and thank God as the author of delight.

Make rejoicing always into a spiritual discipline in which you set your eyes on the delight of God.

The joy of the Lord is our strength. We need it.

Without it, we become bitter, cold, arrogant, and ultimately fall.

So let us cling to it with everything we have.

May our joy be complete in Jesus’ name.