We'd like to look at John 15:11. We looked at this in our first study, but it says to us in John 15 and vs11, "The Lord Jesus has just finished his exposition of the vine and the branches. And he said, "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full." Perhaps we can read the context of this. From vs. 8. It says, "Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit." What is the fruit? Well, of course, the fruit is the fruit of the vine. And as we look at it elsewhere, we realise that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, and so forth. And so he says to us in vs. 8, "Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so shall you be my disciples, as a Father has loved me. So have I loved you. Continue you in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, even as I keep my father's commandments, and abide in His love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another. As I have loved you."

Joy. One of the great words of the Bible, and it's found 155 times. Give or take a few joys, rejoice and rejoicing. And those words are repeated again and again. And interestingly enough, the word joy is found seven times in the upper room discourse. The first time it is found is in Chapter 15. And this instruction is to remind us that my joy might remain in you and that your joy may be full. So, we need to go back and try to understand because this word is used so many times in the Scripture. We could easily ask the question, "Well, what is joy? Well, why is joy so important? Why is it a characteristic of the Christian church, of Christians, and of the Lord Jesus Christ? The apostle Paul made good use of the word joy and rejoice in his little letter to the Philippian church, and a dozen times, or 16 times, we have the word joy and rejoice in the book of Philippians.

So it's instructive for us to realise that joy is not dependent upon circumstances. Think of where the Lord Jesus Christ was. He had walked with his disciples for three and a half years. He was going to the cross. Way back in Matthew chapter 16, He asked the disciples, "Whom do men say that I, the son of man, am". And they say, Jeremiah, one of the prophets, perhaps John the Baptist raised from the grave, and he says, "Whom do you say that I am?" And Peter responds for the disciples and says, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, and then at that point, at that very instant, the Lord Jesus, according to Matthew, He began to tell his disciples that he was going to be handed over to the chief priests and scribes and the people and be killed and be raised again the third day. You'll remember that Peter, after he had said, "Thou art the Christ" the Son of the living God, said at this news of Christ's crucifixion and death, "It will never happen to you.".

The Lord Jesus used some of the strongest terms he ever used for anybody and said to Peter, Get behind Me, Satan. You are not receiving the things of God, but the things that be of men. And so, as we look at where the Lord Jesus Christ is, with his disciples in the upper room, on the last night before he was betrayed, Judas has already left the group and is on the way to the chief priests and scribes to receive his 30 pieces of silver and hand the Lord Jesus Christ over to those with clubs, torches, spears, and so and swords and so forth. And so, the situation—the circumstances—are not good. The Lord Jesus was going to the cross. He was telling his disciples in this upper-room discourse that if they hate me, they'll hate you. If they persecute me, they will persecute you.

And so the story in the Bible and the news from the Lord Jesus Christ were not good. So the disciples responded with unbelief, with fear, with misunderstanding—so many characteristics that the Lord Jesus, here now in this portion and in this verse, begins to address the great need for joy in the lives of these disciples. And the Lord Jesus, of course, was going to go to the cross; when you suffer, you're going to die and be buried, and the disciples, we're told, will all forsake Him and flee. Peter will draw his sword and aim for the high priest's servant, cutting off his ear. And so it was a time of sorrow and pain. And the Lord Jesus reminds them in the upper room discourse of the severe situation. Perhaps it has become too common for us. We are often at the Lord's Supper, coming to these verses and the contents of the upper room to try to understand the institution of the Lord's Supper and grasp the emotional stress on these disciples. Peter says, "Though all these disciples deny you, yet not me. I will not do it. And of course, we know that according to the history that was recorded, just a couple of hours later, Peter would be warming himself by the fire. And he would say, "I don't know the man," and three times he would deny the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. So this is the context; this is the circumstance; this is the climate; this is the condition in that upper room: sorrow, pain, unbelief, and misunderstanding.

So the Lord Jesus, in a very wonderful way, addresses these disciples as the subjects of joy. Now we look at society, at our world, and at our language. And we realise that there is another word that is akin to this word, joy, and it's the word "happiness" and we find that a number of times in the New Testament as well. If we look back at Genesis five, six, or Matthew five, six, and seven, we have the Beatitudes: blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness; and so forth, and that word blessing really means happy. In Psalm One, "Blessed is the man that walks not," and that word is happy. So happiness and joy are, as I was going to say, twins, yet they're very different. They are expressions of our emotions.

God has designed us in His own image, and we believe that the image of God, not physically, but certainly from the standpoint of our soul, we have a perfect mind perfect mind that belong to the Lord Jesus Christ and to Adam, our emotions and our will and so these aspects of our being reminded us that God himself to a perfect in a perfect way, has mind capacity to think emotions, the capacity to feel, and a will, the capacity to decide and so as we look at that, we realise that the Lord Jesus Christ speaking from the standpoint of his own nature, his own character, his own being, his own essence, both human and divine, gives us an understanding of joy.

Happiness is based upon what? Well, the answer is quite simple: happiness is based on what happens if you go to work tomorrow morning and your boss calls you in and says they are doubling your salary and giving you a company car. You're happy. How happy you would be to be able to have twice as much money! But then, if you go into work the next Monday and your boss's boss says you're fired, you wouldn't be so happy anymore. So happiness is based upon our understanding of what happens, and with sorrow, pain, and suffering ahead of the Lord Jesus Christ, the disciples were unhappy, but also because it was of a spiritual nature, the joy of the Lord, which should have been understood, comprehended, applied, and employed by the disciples, was fast departing. And so the Lord Jesus gives to us these seven occasions in the upper room discourse, which are John 13–17, seven different characteristics of joy. So, if happiness is based upon what happens, what is joy based upon? This is so important for us to understand because all of us will go through difficulties and trials. The Lord Jesus Christ says at the end of John, chapter 16, that in the world you will have tribulation. And I don't know whether you've had tribulation today or not. But most of us are praying that we won't have tribulation. But the Lord says in John 16:33, "In the world you will have tribulation," and this is a promise. So as we look at that, we realise: And I suppose none of us would claim that promise, but we can understand and comprehend that the life of the believer, as much as it's like the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, will not be a happy life, but it can be a joyful life.

We see that in so many areas of the Christian life, what seemed to be contradictory experiences are designed together in the life of the believer to manifest the character of the Lord Jesus Christ. To think that he began to be sorrowful and very heavy as he went into the garden of Gethsemane. said goodbye to or left Peter and the nine disciples, and then Peter, James, and John came closer, and then he left them and went a stone's throw away. And he fell on his face and cried out, My God, My God, or father, father if it'd be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done. And we know that he's sweat great drops of blood falling down to the ground; he began to be sorrowful, and yet, the book of Hebrews tells us in chapter 12, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High. What an amazing, shall we say, contradiction?

No, it's not a contradiction because those who have suffered for their faith, those who have been trying severely in their walk with the Lord, many who have been persecuted even to the point of death and have had to give their lives for the sake of the Gospel, in the midst of that it's recorded. Not only in the scriptures but in the historical account of the persecution of the Lord's people. We realise that joy is possible in the midst of the most profound suffering in the midst of the most difficult issues. Why is that? Because joy is based upon believing the truth, we could learn that lesson. If we could comprehend this truth from this chapter and from these references that the Lord Jesus makes and that Paul makes in the book of Philippians, our lives would manifest joy, and we might ask ourselves, "Well, how do you know? Do you look at somebody's hand and say, "That's a joyful hand?" Where do you look? You gather with the Lord's people, and you look at them, and you wonder, "Are they filled with joy? What is the Lord Jesus Christ saying? He said these things, and now we look at them very carefully. These things have I spoken unto you.