A "gloomy Christian" is a contradiction in terms. I don't think anything has hurt the church throughout history more than the idea that a sour, sullen, serious believer is the norm.

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "I would have entered the ministry if clergymen I know didn't look and act so much like undertakers." Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote in his journal, as if it were extraordinary, "I went to church today and I'm not depressed."

To be sanctified doesn’t mean to be sad. After all, we are called to preach the gospel, which means "the good news". It's not "the mediocre news." It's the good news, and it should be proclaimed with authentic joy.

Joy is one of the most infallible signs of the presence of God. It is an unmistakable badge of divine ownership. William Barclay said, "The Christian is a man or a woman of joy. The Christian is the laughing cavalier of Christ."

You see, a joyful believer is a beautiful believer. When somebody has authentic, real joy—not the fake plastered-on stuff—it's attractive and people want to know, "Where'd you get that? I want what you have." A joyful Christian is a good representative of the good news.

Paul wrote the book of Philippians, the epistle of joy, when he was in a Roman prison. Yet the unmistakable quality of joy runs throughout the book. Even in the worst possible circumstances, Paul had the joy of the Lord.

But here's what I want you to see. The real reason for the joy in Paul’s life is described in the very first verse of Philippians, when he called himself and Timothy "bondservants of Jesus Christ." A bondservant is a person owned by someone else—a slave. In the New Testament, it usually refers to somebody who serves another willingly. And Paul was wholly surrendered to his Master, Jesus Christ.

Joy is elusive because it is never found through direct pursuit. It's a byproduct of pursuing Christ and His will. As long as you live for yourself, you'll never find it. But when you turn your life over to Christ and live for Him, you'll find true joy. Forget self, serve Him, be His bondservant. And the byproduct of that is joy.

One of the keys to Paul's life and his joy is that whatever negative experience he was facing, he looked for how God was working through it. When something bad happened, he would think "What's God doing?" That's how he lived his life. When life happens unexpectedly, God is working supernaturally.

There are always two sides to every event in your life. There's the factual side of the event: the who, what, where, how. And we usually want to know those facts. But then there's the actual side: the why. Why did this happen?

Paul lived his life looking for the actual side of every event: Why is God allowing this? What's He up to? Where is the will of God found in this fabric of pain and suffering? As he discovered the will of God, he was joyful.

And that's how he could write, "I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel" (Philippians 1:12). Then, in Philippians 4:4, he says, "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!"

The byproduct of seeking the Lord and surrendering to Him is "joy unspeakable and full of glory" (1 Peter 1:8, KJV). It’s an experience every believer can have. Decide to look for what God’s purpose could be, even in the bleak situations of life, and find joy.