Joy in Christ is the deep, good feeling of believing in Him as reliable and loving Him as precious.

What makes the Christians joy in Christ inexpressible? And how do we foster that joy?

These are the questions that John Piper answers from 1 Peter 1, 8 and 9 in this episode of Light and Truth.

This sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on November 14, 1993.

True Christianity is the process of the soul being saved through love to Christ, faith in Christ, and joy in Christ in spite of not seeing Christ.

That's true Christianity.

Now let's try to get inside these three things. Love, faith, and joy.

How do they relate to each other? What are they? We use these terms in this reality so often that I don't think we pause to just meditate on what is love to Christ, what is faith in Christ, what is joy in Christ?

How can it happen without seeing Him? Nobody in this room has ever seen Jesus.

And yet every one of us, if we're saved, have some measure of love to Him and faith in Him and joy in Him.

Well let's talk about it. First some definitions. Love is being attracted to the preciousness of Christ for who is,

and faith or trust is relying on or banking on the reliability of Christ for what He does and says.

Now how does joy in Christ relate to those two things?

Here's my definition of the rejoicing that is in this verse 8.

Joy in Christ is the deep, good feeling of believing in Him as reliable and loving Him as precious.

Now notice, my definition makes joy a part of love and a part of faith, not a third thing.

Now that's real important. I want you to, I want to try to persuade you of that because I think that has massive implications for how you live your life and how you think about joy and how you think about faith and how you think about love and how you think about Christianity and what it means to be a Christian.

Joy, I am arguing, is a part of love and a part of faith because it would be a contradiction.

Wouldn't it, I'm appealing to your thought now, wouldn't it be a contradiction to say, I am attracted to the preciousness of Christ?

But I have no good feelings in this attraction.

If in seeing the preciousness of Christ there is no deep, yes, you are beautiful to be with you would satisfy my longings.

If that's not a good feeling, it's nothing.

...