Standing Firm: Joy in the Lord
Philippians 4:4
© Mike Riccardi
Introduction
Well, we return this morning to the fourth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Philippians. I mentioned last week, in the midst of my December respite from the evening service, that I wanted to take the opportunity to return to the GraceLife Pulpit, to focus on a section of Philippians 4 that contains a quartet of Gospel graces: unity, joy, gentleness, and peace. These are virtues that we all need to cultivate at all times, but they seem especially appropriate for the Christmas season, and also for the coming New Year.
Unity, which we spoke about last Sunday, and joy, which we’ll focus on today, are most fitting for the Christmas season. I mentioned last time that the birth of a Savior who will rescue us from the just punishment of our sin is described in Luke 2:10 as “good news of great joy.” And the Gospel that accomplishes our forgiveness does so by uniting us to Christ, and therefore uniting us to everyone else who is united to Christ. And so, there are few more appropriate times to consider the Gospel duties of unity and joy than at Christmastime.
But I also mentioned that Paul’s exhortations to unity and joy don’t come in the context of anticipating Christmas. They come in the context of his call to the Philippian church to stand firm in faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ in the midst of an unstable world and a compromising church-at-large. After warning this church about the threats they face—both from false teaching and from faithless practice in chapter 3—Paul exhorts them in chapter 4 verse 1: “Therefore, my beloved brethren whom I long to see, my joy and crown, in this way stand firm in the Lord, my beloved.” In the midst of conflict and compromise, he calls them to be a steadfast church.
And in our own season of transition here at Grace Community Church, we have a special need for spiritual stability—for steadfast faithfulness to the Gospel, to the Word of God, to biblical ministry—which our pastor had modeled for us for 56 years. In a world that remains hostile to everything we love, in a church that remains eager to compromise with that world, and in a season of unprecedented attacks on our church, both inside and outside, we need to stand firm.
And so the important question, then, is, “By what means can I attain that spiritual stability? How can I make this holy aspiration a reality in my life?” Well it’s just that question that Paul answers in this section of his letter. You’ll notice in verse 1 that he commanded the Philippians, “…in this way stand firm in the Lord.” And then following this statement, in verses 2 through 7, come a series of imperatives that make up the means of true, biblical steadfastness.
Last week, as I’ve said, we examined the first of those imperatives. In verses 2 and 3, Paul commands God’s people to be diligently devoted to unity within the local church. And we observed the high premium the Apostle placed on unity, as he called out two women in the congregation by name, urging Euodia and Syntyche to “be of the same mind in the Lord,” and even enlisting the help of Syzygus—likely a leader in the church—to be a peacemaker between them. We learned from that study that disunity is a grave threat to the stability and steadfastness of any church. And so in a very practical manner Paul exhorts the Philippians to diligently preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (cf. Eph 4:3).
This morning we come to the second of those commands. And this one is no less essential for the people of God in our pursuit of Gospel-driven, spiritual stability. Not only must we be diligently devoted to unity within the body. We must also be marked by an unyielding pursuit of joy in the Lord. If the people of God are to “stand firm in the Lord,” as Paul prescribes in verse 1—if we are to “conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel,” chapter 1 verse 27—then we must be relentlessly pursuing our joy in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I draw that principle from our text this morning. Just one verse: Philippians 4 verse 4. Paul commands us, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!” Nothing undermines the stability of a Christian like the failure to find our joy and satisfaction in Christ.
The Centrality of Joy in the Christian Life
Now there are few topics that are more worthy of our study and attention than the topic of Christian joy and rejoicing. Commentator Gordon Fee hits the nail on the head when he writes, “Joy…lies at the heart of the Christian experience of the gospel; it is the fruit of the Spirit in any truly Christian life, serving as primary evidence of the Spirit’s presence” (Fee, 81). He goes onto say that, “Unmitigated, untrammeled joy is…the distinctive mark of the believer in Christ Jesus” (Fee, 404). Martyn Lloyd-Jones, wrote that, “Nothing was more characteristic of the first Christians than this element of joy” (Life of Peace, 143). Elsewhere he said, “The greatest need of the hour is a revived and joyful church” (Spiritual Depression, 5). And perhaps one Puritan minister said it best when he said, “Delighting in God, and in his word and ways, is the flower and life of true religion” (Baxter, The Cure of Melancholy, 257).
And yet, in spite of the critically important place joy occupies in the Christian life, there is nevertheless widespread confusion about what precisely it means to rejoice in the Lord always. Great numbers of Christians, I’ve found, have an unbiblical view of joy. Rather than seeing joy as the dominating characteristic of the Christian life, they view it merely as the “icing on the cake.” For many, joy is only a seasonal fruit of the Spirit. A popular attitude speaks like this: “Do your duty! Be sure to obey God’s commands. And if you can do it with joy, great! But if you can’t, you just make sure you do your duty no matter how you feel. The feelings,” we’re so often told, “will follow.”
And of course, there’s a germ of truth there. I understand the intent of such statements. We are not to be enslaved to our fleshly emotions and feelings. We are not to sit around and ignore our duties to obey Jesus until we’re struck with some unusual exuberance. But neither are we to relegate joy to such a marginal place in the Christian life as those statements make it out to be. The Bible knows nothing of this “icing-on-the-cake” view of joy and rejoicing. It is, as Lloyd-Jones said, the distinctive and dominating characteristic of the Christian life. It is “the flower and life of true religion.”
And that teaching absolutely permeates the New Testament. I want you to hear this staggering emphasis on the centrality of joy in the Christian life as I read several texts. Don’t try to turn to all of these. Just write the references and a key word or two. First, the kingdom of God itself consists in joy. Romans 14:17: “The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Joy is atop the list of the fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5:22: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy….” The Gospel is good news of great joy, Luke 2:10. The Gospel itself—the work of the Lord Jesus Christ—was fueled by joy. Hebrews 12:2 says that Jesus “endured the cross” “for the joy set before Him.”
Joy characterizes the very beginning of the Christian life. In Matthew 13:44, Jesus describes conversion as a man finding a treasure hidden in a field, “and from joy over it he goes and sells all he has and buys that field.” Joy also characterizes the end of the Christian life. In Matthew 25:21, Jesus describes the welcome of His faithful servants into heaven with the phrase, “Enter into the joy of your master.”
Joy is the great end and purpose of prayer. In John 16:24, Jesus commands His disciples, “Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full.” Joy is the great end and purpose of Jesus’ teachings. In John 15:11, He tells the disciples, “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” And again in His high priestly prayer, He said, “these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves” (John 17:13).
Joy was the distinctive mark of the early church. Acts 13:52: “And the disciples were continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.” Joy is the true consequence and companion of saving faith. In Romans 15:13, Paul prays: “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.” It is the dominating characteristic of all true believers. 1 Peter 1:8: “And though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.”
Joy is the inevitable result of serving the Lord. Luke 10:17 records the great joy of the seventy disciples Jesus sent out to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Joy is also the very goal of ministry for those ministered to. In 2 Corinthians 1:24, Paul describes his ministry to the Corinthians by saying, we “are workers with you for your joy.” And in Philippians 1:25, he tells the Philippians he’s convinced that he’ll remain on in the ministry “for your progress and joy in the faith.” Joy is what sustains suffering Christians in the midst of affliction. 1 Thessalonians 1:6, Paul says: “You . . . received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit.” Joy is the result of true Christian fellowship. In 1 Thessalonians 3:9, Paul asks his dear friends, “For what thanks can we render to God for you in return for all the joy with which we rejoice before our God on your account?” And finally, joy is the very occupation of heaven itself, as we learn in Luke 15:10 that “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Friends, can there be any doubt as to the centrality of joy in the Christian life? The kingdom of God, the fruit of the Spirit, the Gospel itself, the beginning and the end of the Christian life, the goal of prayer, the goal of the Word, the goal of ministry, the result of fellowship, the strength to endure suffering, and the occupation of heaven: Joy absolutely saturatesthe pages of Scripture! And corresponding to that, joy must permeate your soul and every aspect of your Christian life.
Paul knew this. And that’s why in the four short chapters of Philippians, Paul makes mention of joy or rejoicing no less than sixteen times. That emphasis led Lloyd-Jones to conclude that joy was “the thing that Paul desired for these people above everything else. It was their heritage as Christian people,” he says (Life of Peace, 144). Joy is the birthright of the children of God!
And so we’re going to take the rest of this morning to examine this crown of Christian graces. And we’re going to cover a lot of ground, but we’ll hang all our thoughts on three main headings. First, we’ll consider the command to rejoice. Second, we’ll consider the constancy of our rejoicing. And finally, we’ll consider the cause of our rejoicing. So: the command, the constancy, and the cause.
I. The Command to Our Rejoicing
In the first place, then, let us consider the command for the Christian to rejoice. Paul commands us to “Rejoice in the Lord always.”
A. Joy is a Duty
Now the first thing that I want to draw your attention to about this command to rejoice is that it is indeed a command. Paul isn’t making a request, or merely offering a suggestion, as if to say, “If you’d really like to make progress in your Christian life, if you really want to be a mature Christian, you might consider diligently pursuing your joy in God.” No, he’s speaking to all the saints at Philippi, and by extension to all Christians today, and informing us of our duty. And the form in the Greek is emphatic: It is a present imperative. And so even if he didn’t include the word “always” at the end of the phrase, the original language would still have the force of: “Be continually rejoicing.”
And Paul is not doing something unique here. Scripture often commands us to rejoice. Psalm 33:1 opens with the call to, “Sing for joy in Yahweh, O you righteous ones.” The Old Testament equivalent of Philippians 4:4 is Psalm 37:4, where David commands us to “Delight yourself in Yahweh.” The Lord Jesus Himself, in Matthew 5:12, commands us to “Rejoice and be glad” when we are persecuted for righteousness’ sake. And in a very similar fashion, the Apostle Peter commands the churches under his care, 1 Peter 4:13, “to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing.”
Scripture makes it clear that joy is a duty of the people of God. But in spite of that clarity, many Christians continue to believe that joy is some sort of ancillary, incidental footnote to the Christian life. And I’m sure that response was as old as the commands themselves, because Paul feels the need to repeat himself before the end of the verse. It’s as if he’s sitting there writing and can already hear the objection: “Well, surely he can’t mean rejoice in the Lord always! Doesn’t he know what we’re going through?!” And so he repeats himself, anticipating those objections, and says: “Again I will say, Rejoice!”
I love the comment Spurgeon makes on this. He says, “Do you not think that this [repetition] was intended also to impress upon them the importance of the duty? ‘Again I say, Rejoice.’ Some of you will go and say, ‘I do not think that it matters much whether I am happy or not, I shall get to heaven, however gloomy I am, if I am sincere.’ ‘No,’ says Paul, ‘that kind of talk will not do; I cannot have you speak like that. Come, I must have you rejoice, I do really conceive it to be a Christian’s bounden duty, and so, ‘Again, I say, Rejoice!’”
B. Joy is an Affection
Well, if joy is our duty, what is joy, exactly? And what isn’t it? Well, in the first place, true Christian joy is not some sort of pasted-smile, superficial peppiness that is indifferent to the painful and difficult circumstances we find ourselves in. Paul is not in any way commanding Christians to always manifest an unrealistic perkiness that has no room for weeping with those who weep and mourning over sin. He’s not saying something so superficial as, “Don’t worry, be happy.”
Neither is joy merely a superficial emotional response to the circumstances of life—so that when things are going well we find it easy to rejoice, but when things aren’t going so well we find it difficult to rejoice. That’s the world’s definition of joy and rejoicing. But if there’s one thing Paul models for us in this letter overflowing with talk about joy and rejoicing—as he sits in prison, chained to a Roman soldier—it’s that true Christian joy is in no way dependent on our circumstances. Joy is not merely a feeling. It’s much more than that.
But I also have to say: Joy is not less than a feeling either. I prefer to use the term “affection” rather than “feeling” or “emotion,” but the truth is just the same. So many people, when they recognize that Scripture commands us to rejoice, they think, “Well, joy must not involve the emotions at all,” because, they assume, “God can’t command us to feel a certain way! We can’t help how we feel!” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read the assertion, “Joy is not a feeling. It’s a decision; it’s an act of the will.” And again, as I said, I understand that joy is more than a feeling. But it is not less than that. And I’m so concerned at how widespread this misconception is that I want to take a moment to prove that to you from Scripture.
Turn first to John chapter 16. Jesus is nearing the end of His upper room discourse on the night of His betrayal. And as He’s preparing the disciples for His departure, He makes an absolutely precious comment in verses 20 to 22. John 16 verse 20: “Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world. Therefore you too have sorrow now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.” The key point to observe here is the contrast between (a) joy and rejoicing, and (b) grief and sorrow. Jesus is speaking of the sorrow that the disciples will feel when He’s no longer with them, but He comforts them with the joy that they’ll experience when they see Him again. Now, that contrast is rendered absolutely incomprehensible if joy is not, at least in some measure, a feeling, an affection, a motion and inclination of the soul. What are we going to say next, that grief and sorrow aren’t feelings? that the joy a woman feels at the birth of her child has nothing to do with emotions?
Another passage that makes this point is 1 Peter 1:8. Peter is writing about the personal experience of all Christians in this opening section of his letter. And in verse 8, he writes this magnificent sentence: “And though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.” Now just listen to that! Which of you can say, “OK. I’m going to bear down and exercise my willpower, irrespective of my feelings, and I’m going to decide to have inexpressible joy”? It just doesn’t work that way. This is speaking about an affection—an overwhelming sense of pleasure and delight that evokes happy shouting.
Friends, if we can tear down our prejudices regarding how we may have thought about emotions—prejudices we’ve erected because we understand the very real dangers of emotionalism, or because we know that our own affections fall far short of the biblical standard —and if we listen to the language of these verses, it becomes plain how foolish it is to kidnap joy from the realm of the affections. “You greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.” Jonathan Edwards took this very verse as his principal text when he wrote that marvelous treatise, The Religious Affections. And the thesis of that great work—the conclusion he drew from this very text—was that “True religion, in great part, consists in holy affections” (Works, 1:236). I love what Pastor John says about this. He says, “Christian joy is not an emotion on top of an emotion. It is not a feeling on top of a feeling. It is a feeling; [but it is a feeling] on top of a fact. It is an emotional response to what I know to be true about my God” (“Rejoicing Always”).
And so God commands us, friends, in response to the truths we know about Him, to feel. The Christian is not merely someone who has “made a decision for Jesus” and cleaned up his life and his language a little bit. Becoming a Christian means spiritual heart surgery, being given a new heart, new affections and new desires—such that we not only do justly, but also love mercy, Micah 6:8; that we would not only be givers, but cheerful givers, 2 Corinthians 9:7; that pastors and elders would not only shepherd the flock, but shepherd the flock willingly and eagerly, 1 Peter 5:2. These are affections of the heart. God’s Word contains commands that cover the full range of human emotions. We are not to covet (Exodus 20:17), but to be content (Hebrews 13:5). We are to hope in God (Psalm 42:5); we’re to fear God (Luke 12:5) and experience the peace of Christ ruling in our hearts (Colossians 3:15). We’re to long for—to earnestly desire—the pure milk of the Word (1 Peter 2:2). We’re to be tenderhearted (Ephesians 4:32), and we are to come before God with a broken spirit and a contrite heart (Psalm 51:17).
And so it’s inescapable, friends: joylessness is as much of a sin as stealing, coveting, or lying. If we are commanded to “Rejoice in the Lord always,” then to be characterized by a constant gloominess, or moroseness, or depression, is to disobey this divine imperative. Spurgeon said, “If any of you have taken a gloomy view of religion, I beseech you to throw that gloomy view away at once!” Listen to what God says in Deuteronomy 28:47–48: “Because you did not serve Yahweh your God with joy and a glad heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore you shall serve your enemies whom Yahweh will send against you….” For God’s people, united to Him by covenant, granted access to Him through the forgiveness of our sins by grace alone—for those of us who have so much to be joyful about—we’ve got to face the facts: joylessness is sin.
Which means: the counsel that says, “Just do your duty, and your feelings will follow,” is a confused piece of advice, because joy, gladness, hope, cheerfulness—all of that is our duty. If God loves a cheerful giver, and you give begrudgingly, without cheerfulness, you’ve done your duty to give, but you haven’t done your duty to give cheerfully. Now, I’m not saying, “Neglect your duty to give until you feel like doing it cheerfully.” No. It’s never right to compoundyour disobedience because you’re in a sluggish frame of heart. Do your duty to give! Do your duty to serve! But confess your lack of joy and cheerfulness as the sin that it is, and ask God to give you the heart to do all of your duty with joy.
You see, this doesn’t lower the bar of obedience in the Christian life. Sometimes people hear the emphasis on doing your duty with joy and they think, “Oh, that’s just Quietism. He’s saying not to obey until you feel like it.” Not at all. Understanding that God commands the heart as well as the hands raises the bar, because it teaches that we haven’t obeyed until we “feel like it.” Begrudgingly following orders isn’t worthy of the name “obedience.” That kind of thing can be counterfeited by legalists with a strong willpower. But God commands us not only to do, but also to feel.
And yet how gracious is our God to command us to “Rejoice in the Lord always”! He makes delight our duty! Spurgeon said, “Come, brothers and sisters, I am inviting you now to no distasteful duty when, in the name of my Master, I say to you, as Paul said to the Philippians under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice!’”
II. The Constancy of Our Rejoicing
Such, then, is the command to rejoice. In the second place, let us consider, just briefly, the constancy of our rejoicing. We are to “Rejoice always.” Again, literally, the command is, “Be continually rejoicing always”: at all times, and in all circumstances.
You say, “Now Mike, I can understand that God commands us to rejoice, as high of a calling as that is. There may be some special times in my life that I might be able to attain to that gracious frame of heart you’ve just described from the pages of Scripture. But to rejoice always? You just don’t know what my life is like! You just don’t know what I’m going through!” Well, you’re right. I may not know. But you see, the beauty of that is that I didn’t write this. The Lord God Himself has laid this standard upon His people, and He does know what your life is like. He does know what you’re going through. And not only does He know what you’re going through, but according to His infinite wisdom He has decreed the circumstances you find yourself in. And with infinite knowledge and perfect wisdom, He commands you to rejoice always.
Now that teaches us that true Christian joy is not dependent upon our circumstances. If we are commanded to rejoice always, no matter what situations of life we find ourselves in, then our joy must not be tied to our circumstances. You say, “Even in suffering and trials and affliction?” Especially in suffering and trials and affliction! Think of the mountain of texts which call us to joy in the midst of suffering: We are to “consider it all joy when we encounter various trials,” James 1:2; we are to “exult in our tribulations,” Romans 5:3; “To the degree we share in the sufferings of Christ,” we are to “keep on rejoicing,” 1 Peter 4:13.
And Paul is well aware of what the Philippians are going through. He speaks of their “opponents” in chapter 1 verse 28, and their “conflict” in verse 30. And of course they were tempted to be robbed of their joy because of Paul’s imprisonment, Epaphroditus’s health. And yet Paul insists that they rejoice always. And it’s not like Paul has no skin in the game himself. He’s sitting in a Roman prison, chained 18 inches away from a Roman soldier, awaiting a trial before a madman who will determine whether he lives or dies. And while he’s in prison, there are rival preachers in Rome who are aiming to cause him distress by preaching freely while he is bound, and taunting him about it! And yet in chapter 1 verse 18 he says, almost defiantly, “Yes, and I will rejoice!”
Now, I need to emphasize that this constant joyfulness to which we are called as Christians does not mean that we shut our eyes to the sorrows of this life; that we are unmoved by the pains and troubles of life in a sin-cursed world; that we are immune to grief, whether our own or of others. No, we are called not only to “rejoice with those who rejoice,” but also to “weep with those who weep” (Rom 12:15). Paul himself tells us in Philippians 3:18 that he weeps as he thinks of those enemies of the cross of Christ who deny Christ by their loose living.
And so this joy that we are to be constantly marked by—it’s not indifferent to the pains of this life. It’s not mutually exclusive with the heaviness of sorrow that attends life in a fallen world. I think one of the most profound phrases Paul ever wrote was 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 10, where he described himself as “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” “I’m sorrowful. I’m sorrowful at the way the world is. I’m sorrowful at the opposition that I face for the Gospel. I don’t getgiddy about spending a night and a day in the deep, or being hungry and unclothed. I have unceasing anguish in my heart for those who are cut off from Christ and face the judgment of God for their sins. I have the daily pressure of concern for all the churches. I groan at the remaining sin in my own flesh. But,” he says, “even in the midst of that sorrow, I am always rejoicing.”
And we are called to follow him there, GraceLife—through the tears, through the sleepless nights, through the slander and attacks, through the deepest possible pain: to raise the eyes of our heart to behold a risen Savior, with nail-pierced hands, and a spear-shaped hole in his side, and scars from whips and thorns! And to know that those wounds have conquered ourwounds; that His sorrows have swallowed up our sorrows, because they’ve paid for our sins. They’ve brought us to God, our “exceeding joy,” Psalm 43:4! And if we can see One so lovely as Him, and know ourselves forgiven by Him, accepted by Him, we can be sorrowful, and yet always rejoicing.
III. The Cause of Our Rejoicing
And that brings us to our third point. How are you supposed to rejoice always? Well, you have to remember that the command is not merely to “rejoice always,” but, look at our text, we are to “Rejoice in the Lord always.” We’ve seen the command to rejoice, as well as the constancy of our rejoicing. We come now, number three, to the cause of our rejoicing. We are to rejoice in the Lord.
And that little phrase is the essential key to rejoicing always (cf. Hansen, 287). “The only sure, reliable, unwavering, unchanging source of joy is God himself” (MacArthur, 274). If you pursue your joy in your circumstances, you will be disappointed, because your circumstances may often be unpleasant. If you pursue your joy in other people, you will be disappointed, because—as much as we love our family and friends and fellow-believers—they will, at one time or another, let us down. If you pursue your joy in success and prominence and money, you will be disappointed, because all those things come and go. But if you pursue your joy in all that God Himself is for you in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will never be disappointed. You will rejoice in the Lord always, because He never leaves. He never changes, and He neverwavers. Puritan Thomas Manton says, “Whatever falls out, God’s all-sufficiency and heaven’s happiness are everlasting grounds of rejoicing” (Works, 17:473).
The Lord Jesus Christ is to be the source of our joy, the sphere of our joy, and the object of our joy. The source of Paul’s joy wasn’t the pleasantness of his circumstances, but the pleasantness of His Savior. Chapter 1: “Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know…that Christ will even now be exalted—magnified—in my body, whether by life or by death.” That is where joy comes from. Not from fame, or power, or riches, or ease. It doesn’t come from a trouble-free marriage, or a better job, or this or that relationship. True and lasting joy comes from the all-satisfying vision of the glory of Jesus displayed to the eyes of your heart. When you can see Him—as He is, in all the beauty of His glory, as He is displayed in the Scriptures—then you start talking like Habakkuk, who in chapter 3 verse 17 of his prophecy said, “Though the fig tree should not blossom And there be no fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive should fail And the fields produce no food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold And there be no cattle in the stalls, Yet I will exult in Yahweh; I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.”
To rejoice in the Lord, friends, means to experience Him as so precious—to have such a sense of His surpassing value, as Paul says in Philippians 3:8—that whether I’m free to move about or whether I am in prison, whether I’m suffering or whether I’m prospering, whether I’m amply supplied or whether there is no money in the bank, whether I live and serve Christ or whether I die and go to be with Christ—the fact that I know Him, and see Him, and have communion with Him, and belong to Him, brings me an unshakable, unalterable joy! It means that I can lose everything this life can offer me, as long as I gain Him, and my joy can’t be touched. It means I am steadfast—that I will stand firm, no matter what!
So, the call to rejoice in the Lord is a call to the relentless pursuit of our joy and delight in Him! True, biblical, Christian joy is the affection that is produced in the soul when one finds delight, pleasure, and satisfaction in God Himself or the truth about Him, and then responds in gladness. This is the duty to which this verse calls us.
And we’re in good company in understanding it this way. This not, “Well, you know, Mike talks about feelings and emotions and the mushy-gushy stuff because he’s an overly emotional guy.” John Calvin comments that “The chief activity of the soul is to aspire to happiness in God” (Institutes, I.15.6). The Puritan Thomas Manton very simply defines “Rejoicing always” as “Delighting ourselves in God” (Complete Works, 17:470). Spurgeon defined rejoicing in the Lord as being satisfied in God and overflowing with delight in Him (“Joy, a Duty”). And the great Princeton theologian Charles Hodge wrote that one of the essential elements of the knowledge of Christ is the “feeling of adoration, delight, desire, and complacency” that accompanies truth about Him (“Excellency,” 214).
And so what are some of those “truths about Him” with which we are to flood our minds and over which we are to rejoice? What reasons do we have to rejoice in the Lord? Well, more than anything, we have cause for rejoicing as a result of being beneficiaries of the grace of Christ in the Gospel. We were dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1–3), hopelessly enslaved to our own lusts and desires (Tit 3:3), alienated from God and hostile to Him as His enemies (Col 1:21; Rom 8:7), powerless to do a single thing to change (Rom 5:6), and bound for the horrors of eternal punishment under the just wrath of Almighty God (2 Thess 1:9). And at just the right time, “God sent forth His Son”—fully God and perfectly holy—to take on human flesh and be “born under the law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Gal 4:4–5). He lived the perfect life of righteousness that we were commanded to live but failed to live. And, taking our sins upon Himself, He died the death that we were required to die but couldn’t survive: the unmixed outpouring of the wrath of His dear Father, whom He had always pleased and in whom He had always rejoiced. He bore the punishment of our sins.
And because He did, we trust in His perfect righteousness and His perfect sacrifice to secure God’s favor for us. And by that faith—which is itself a gift from God—our sins are forgiven. We are counted righteous in Christ. We are accepted in the Beloved (Eph 1:6) and become sons and daughters of God (1 John 3:1). “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1) Heaven is certain, and we eagerly await the return of our Savior from heaven, who will clothe us with a glorified body that is free from all sin, perfectly suited to life in obedience to God (Phil 3:20–21). We can joyfully anticipate the eternal pleasures that we are to experience at His right hand (Ps 16:11).
And we also enjoy communion with Him at this very moment. We have fellowship with the Father. We may speak with the God of the universe any time we want, because we come in the name of Christ our great High Priest (Heb 4:16). We know God, in His immaculate purity and holiness (Manton, 17:471), in His infinite wisdom and understanding, in His indomitable sovereignty, and in His bountiful goodness. This God, who loves us for Christ’s sake, controls everything that happens in this life, promises to work it all for our good, and has the immeasurable wisdom necessary to make that happen. This God is our God! He is our Father! Behold your God, GraceLife, and having seen Him in His infinite majesty: rejoice in the Lord always.
Spurgeon entreats us: “Let me invite, persuade, command you to delight in the Lord Jesus, incarnate in your flesh, dead for your sins, risen for your justification, gone into the glory claiming victory for you, sitting at the right hand of God interceding for you, reigning over all worlds on your behalf, and soon to come to take you up into his glory that you may be with him forever. Rejoice in the Lord Jesus. This is a sea of delight; blessed are they that dive into its utmost depths.”
This is how you fight for joy, friends. You don’t fabricate joy by manipulating your feelings, by whipping yourself into an emotional frenzy. You pursue the means by which that gift of genuine joy comes. True, Christian joy is a result of flooding the mind with the truth of God, and Christ, and the Gospel—the result of saturating the eyes of your heart with the glory of God revealed in the face of Christ. The inevitable result of beholding that all-satisfying sight is affections of love, delight, satisfaction, and joy.
The fight for joy—the unyielding pursuit of our joy in the Lord—is a fight first of all to see. If seeing the glory of God in the face of Christ is the fuel of all true joy, then I must avail myself of every means by which His glory is revealed: in Scripture, through prayer, in fellowship with other believers, in the beauty of creation that declares the glory of God, and chiefly along the path of obedience—as He promises, John 14:21, that “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” As I strive to keep Christ’s commandments, He discloses Himself to the eyes of my heart. And it is that sight of Him that my heart was designed to run on, and is the only source of true and abiding joy.
Conclusion
Dear friends, do you long for the kind of spiritual stability and resolute steadfastness that characterizes faithful followers of Christ? Is it your desire to stand firm against all the corruption and compromise of this crooked and perverse generation—and to courageously march into that generation to proclaim the Good News of forgiveness of sins in Jesus? If so, youmust relentlessly pursue your joy in the Lord.
And I’ll close with another quote from Spurgeon. He says, “So may you feed and so may you drink until you come unto the mount of God; where you shall see his face unveiled, and standing in his exceeding brightness, shall know his glory, being glorified with the saved. Till then, be happy. … If the present be dreary, it will soon be over. Oh, but a little while, and we shall be transferred from these seats below to the thrones above! We shall go from the place of aching brows to the place where they all wear crowns, from the place of weary hands to where they bear the palm branch of victory, from the place of mistake and error and sin, and conseuent grief, to the place where they are without fault before the throne of God, for they have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
Rejoice in the Lord always, GraceLife. Again I will say: Rejoice.