Which is closer to the center of your life as a Christian: what you’re doing for God, or what God has already done for you through Jesus Christ? Which one grounds your identity more deeply, affects your mood more frequently, rouses your passions more highly?

Your answer to these questions will deeply shape the stability, tenacity, happiness, boldness, and humility of your Christian experience. Jesus wants to provide you grounds for unshakable joy.

Joyful Return

There’s a moment in the Gospel of Luke when 72 of Jesus’s disciples return from a ministry trip. They’ve been healing the sick, casting out demons, and proclaiming the coming kingdom. Now they’re back, overflowing with excitement. They say,

Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name! (Luke 10:17)

As the rest of Luke’s Gospel makes clear, demons are powerful spiritual beings opposed to Jesus. So, it’s remarkable that they’re subject to Jesus’s followers in Jesus’s name. Imagine discovering that a fierce, rampaging lion will meekly obey your verbal commands. You would be amazed.

Better Than You Think

Jesus doesn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the returning disciples. In fact, his first response is to inform them that things are even better than they think.

He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” (Luke 10:18)

In other words, it’s not just the demons who are subject to Jesus but also their leader. The ministry of Jesus and his followers cripples Satan’s influence. The death of Jesus robs Satan of all grounds for accusing sinners before God. The resurrection of Jesus defeats death itself. Satan’s downfall is inevitable.

And that’s not all. Jesus goes on:

Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. (Luke 10:19)

Not only has Jesus given his followers authority to win a decisive victory over their spiritual enemies (symbolized by serpents and scorpions); he also guarantees that nothing, absolutely nothing, will hurt them. He doesn’t mean they’ll never get sick, suffer, be persecuted, or die (Luke 6:27–29; 9:23–24). But he promises to keep them safe from every spiritual attack as they trust in him.

In essence, Jesus says to his joyful followers, “What’s happening is better than you imagine. My victory is more comprehensive than you realize. You’re safer and more secure than you know.”

Well-Grounded Joy

At this point, we might expect Jesus to call his disciples to rejoice not merely in the subjection of the demons (as they’re already doing) but also in the role they’re playing in defeating Satan himself. But that’s not what Jesus does. In fact, he begins by telling them not to rejoice in the demons’ subjection.

Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you . . . (Luke 10:20)

Jesus isn’t saying that their ministry is unimportant. He isn’t saying that we should never rejoice when ministry goes well — the apostle Paul did exactly that (Romans 16:19; 2 Corinthians 7:9). But he is calling us to root our joy in something deeper than what God is doing through us. He takes us to that deeper place in one short phrase:

. . . but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. (Luke 10:20)

Here is solid ground for durable joy. Here is a firmer foundation than the greatest possible spiritual successes, a ground of joy more stable than even the astounding victories of Jesus’s first followers. We’re saved. God did that.

Written by God

When I walk into the gymnasium of our local middle school to vote in primaries or general elections, I come to a table in front of the voting booths. A volunteer sitting behind the table asks my name and then checks to see if I’m recorded on her list. Only if my name is there can I vote.

Whenever our family boards an airplane, I hold onto our tickets even after we’ve settled into our seats. Why? Because if someone else boards after us and claims the same seats, I want to be able to prove they belong to us. Our names are on the list!

“Imagine being able to rejoice on your worst ministry day and to remain humble on your best.”

Voting and flying are small privileges. How much better to have your name recorded on the census list of heaven. Jesus says the names of God’s people are already written down, meaning our eternal future with God is guaranteed. Notice too that Jesus says the disciples’ names “are written.” It’s a passive verb — what many theologians call a divine passive. No human being — however gifted, kind, accomplished, impressive, educated — gets to write his own name in heaven. Only God does that. Imagine God writing your name.

Some years ago, I received handwritten notes from the editor of a writing project I was working on. The editor was J.I. Packer (1926–2020). I treasured those notes! But here is something infinitely better: God himself has recorded in heaven the name of each follower of Jesus. He knows us personally. He will keep us eternally. Our future with him is guaranteed.

Off the Performance Seesaw

Jesus’s teaching spares us grief and offers us grace. When we root our joy in ministry success, we’re likely to experience what a friend of mine calls the “performance seesaw” — feeling good about ourselves when our ministry visibly flourishes but insecure and inadequate when it doesn’t. That seesaw will go up and down from one day (or hour) to the next, leaving us dizzy, disoriented, unstable, and unhappy (trust me, I’ve spent some time on it).

We can ride this seesaw even when we acknowledge that God ultimately gives ministry success. After all, the disciples recognized that the demons were subject to them in the name of Jesus, but still, Jesus called them away from ministry as the ground of their joy.

In addition to putting us on the performance seesaw, rooting our joy in ministry success may create distance between us and our ministry friends by tempting us to compare accomplishments, which leads to feelings of either inadequacy or superiority (or both). Like a skyscraper built on unstable ground, everything may look fine for a while, but that building will eventually begin to lean.

Through Success and Failure

Jesus gives his disciples solid ground that will sustain their joy through spectacular success or seeming failure. Imagine being able to rejoice on your worst ministry day and to remain humble on your best. Jesus gives us that. He invites us to experience the joy of our salvation, the gladness that flows from what God has already done on our behalf.

Because this foundation is the work of God, it isn’t contingent on us. Because it’s God’s already-accomplished work, it doesn’t depend on our future victories or failures. Moreover, it unites us with every other Christian because — no matter our intelligence, accomplishments, productivity, or education — the common ground of our deepest joy is the same: God’s saving work for us through Christ.

So, which is closer to the center of your Christian experience: what you’re doing for God, or what God has already done for you through Jesus Christ? Jesus himself invites us to stand together on the ground of unshakable joy that he offers.