Make a Joyful Noise?

How do you preach a command to have joy from the Scriptures without it sounding cheap, escapist, or superficial? That was my challenge this past Sunday with Psalm 98 (and Joy to the World).

Psalm 98:4: “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises!”

“Make a joyful noise” means to shout, to raise up a blast of noise.

This is the verse that undoubtedly inspired Isaac Watts in his writing of Joy to the World.

I want to be careful how I preach this because it seems everywhere we turn, someone is selling us ways to be happy.

There’s a lot of coin being made on selling shortcuts to happiness, finding inner peace and guilting folks in the midst of their grief. And I don’t want to join that sketchy chorus.

So, I want to be sensitive but I also want to point to the truth of these verses. And there’s truth here for us. No matter how understandable our hesitation is, there is good news here for us.

I’m going to meander a bit so please bear with me.

We’re all in the midst of a battle here. We’re all pilgrim sojourners in this broken world. We live in a world full of sin, full of oppression, sorrow, the list goes on. And we contribute to it, we’re not innocent.

One of the humbling privileges of pastoring is you start to get a sense of each person’s battle. And as I look around the room, I know some of those stories. I know the battles you’re fighting.

In fact, right now, I’d like to pause and for you to consider those battles. What’s the battle you find yourself in? What’s the story of your life? What do you feel like you’re always up against? Are you winning/losing? When the opposition has the upper hand, what hope do you cling to, if any?

So, our battles are fresh in our minds and here’s this Scripture saying, “make a joyful noise.” What do we do with that?

If you’re not well acquainted with the Psalms, know this: they are very honest: honest about brokenness, honest about circumstances, honest about doubts. Whatever the Psalmist is advocating for here as he says “make a joyful noise” can’t be dishonest. Joy is not detached from struggle. Joy and struggle are somehow mingled together.

So, how do we make a joyful noise in the midst of the struggle, in the midst of the battle? To answer that, we must have a proper understanding of joy.

Christian joy is different than secular joy. Secular joy is based around circumstances. We think: “If I can just control circumstances, then I can manufacture happiness.”

What’s the problem with that? Well, no one can control their circumstances.

Christian joy is not based on circumstances. In fact, Christian joy is despite our circumstances. We’re called to rejoice in our sufferings. We are called to count it pure joy when trials come our way. We are called to rejoice all the time.

No, our joy does not correspond to circumstances; our joy runs alongside of our circumstances.

Joy is a feeling. Joy is a conviction. Perhaps though, for the Christian, joy is an experience.

God is joyful. We may not think of Him that way but He is. He is joyful in and among Himself. There’s never been more joy than what the Godhead experiences. Creation is the aftermath of an explosion of joy. He did not create us out of need but out of overflow of love.

In our sin, we rejected that joy. We created distance between us and that joy but the Christian message is that joy came down to us.

Jesus faced anguish and rejection so that we might have joy.

Joy is the offer of the gospel. This is why Jesus says in John, “Take heart — be of good cheer — because I have overcome the world.”

The gospel is called good news. It’s joyful news.

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Back to our question: How do we make a joyful noise in the midst of the struggle?

Pain does not have the loudest word in our story nor does it have the last word. Joy does. As Psalm 30 says, “Sorrow may last for the night but joy comes in the morning.”

We will have sorrowful nights — that is the experience of all humans — but the promise for the Christian is that the morning will come.

To have joy is to meditate, to behold, and experience the beauty of the gospel: that God loved us so much that He sent His son to experience anguish so that we could experience life; that God is weaving something meaningful and purposeful in the midst of our pain for the betterment of the world; that one day, we know there will be no more pain, no more struggle, and no more sorrow.

To have joy is to remember that, to experience that, and to recall that beauty.

So, for the Christian, joy is something mature, rooted, and firm. It’s not fleeting, it’s not escapist, it’s not superficial — it’s steadfast.

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C.S. Lewis has written a lot about joy. I want to read one of his quotes: “Joy is distinct not only from pleasure in general but even from aesthetic pleasure. It must have the stab, the pang, the inconsolable longing.”

That’s the joy in the struggle: here but allusive, present but aspirational. The more we ache, the more we struggle, the more we long for joy. And the good news of the gospel is that God compassionately offers it.

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It helped me this week thinking about “making a joyful noise” like a battle cry. In fact, the Hebrew is sometimes translated that way for this phrase.

We’re in a battle, we’re getting shot, we’re taking blows, we’re bruised, we’re battered and we don’t deny these facts. We tend to our wounds but we raise our battle cry as we do. We remember why we’re fighting.

Our shouts are a gloating battle cry. It’s a cry that says, “I may lose the battle but I know God will win the war.” The battle seems present but the war is already over!

Christian joy is like saying: I choose joy although I know I’m wounded. I choose joy though I have a ton of questions. I choose joy in the midst of the mystery. I choose joy because sorrow will not possess me.

It’s present but aspirational, it’s here but allusive, it’s hopeful but fragile. But the good news is that our incomplete experiences of joy will one day be made complete.

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Maybe this is hard to hear for some of us. Maybe you’re in the midst of a dark night of the soul. If so, hear this:

A broken hallelujah is still a hallelujah. A reluctant amen is still an amen. A whispered praise is still a praise.

If you long for joy, if you know Jesus offers joy — if that’s your aspiration — you may be in a hard place but you’re in a good place.