Again I Will Say, Rejoice! [Devotion]
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:4-9
Likely we’ve all read this passage once or many times throughout the course of our lives and it came to my mind today as I thought what I should say to you all. As I’ve shared recently a lot has gone on personally and professionally this year. Many times I have felt at the end of my rope and I wish I could say I remembered this passage more consistently in those times. But despite my failings God has been slowly and surely teaching this passage to my spirit throughout the year 2019.
Rejoice in the Lord always… always. Do you ever get hung up on the first word? I do. “Rejoice” we see that and think that what Paul is talking about here is having joy in all circumstances. And that is what he’s saying… but not all that he’s saying. But so often we read this passage and come away with the words “rejoice” and “always”. So we mentally roll our eyes at Paul and then sigh as we say, “Okay we get it Paul, old buddy old pal, we know we’re supposed to have joy in all circumstances. But what does that even mean? We all know the Sunday school answer that joy isn’t happiness but come on Paul just tell us what it is and a practical step by step list that we can use to achieve it.” At least I feel like that sometimes… I think we read passages about joy in all circumstances and we agree mentally but our spirits have no idea of what that practically means… or at least it doesn’t know how to put it into words.
But I think that, perhaps, we are too enamored or even daunted by the words “rejoice… always” that we miss what I believe to be the more important words of that passage,, “…in the Lord…”
Paul is not telling us to manufacture joy out of some need to look like we have it all together for the people around us. God doesn’t need us to be His poster people. Rather Paul is saying that God is “Yahweh Yireh” GOD the provider. Just as we must receive our strength, hope, direction, value, purpose, and even our lives from Christ we must go to Him for joy in all circumstances. And when I say “go to Him” I don’t mean that we line up and pray for our share of joy and He’ll just pop it into us like an over the counter spiritual supplement. Instead I mean that we must, as Paul directly says, rejoice in the Lord!
Those of you who have a child may be able to better understand this concept. I find joy in my son. No I’m not saying that he is the source of my ultimate joy but I do have great joy in him. Now I don’t always have joy in him but there are moments when my little dude does or says something that causes my heart to take deep satisfaction in who he is.
For example the other night we were at an event I was running for our church. We had games and candy and… the power went out. In the middle of all of my plans and hard work the power had gone out and it didn’t look like it was going to come back on for several hours. As I was rushing around trying to figure things out my heart was getting heavier and heavier as I realized things were going horribly wrong. Then I walked past my son who was walking past with my wife. Dressed as Bob the Tomato he proudly held up a large bag that had a total of perhaps three pieces of candy and boasted, “I got fishies, Daddy!” He had been playing a fishing themed game and had “caught” less than a handful of candy. He was so excited and proud of it that there, in the dark, my heart overflowed and I almost cried as my bad attitude about the event melted away. I took joy in that circumstance not from my son by him giving me something that was now mine but rather I took joy in my son by simply basking in the wonder of his two year old excitement which was totally un-phased by the trouble that I was piling on myself.
We often treat joy as though it is an attribute that we might get from God but that is ours once we have it. But that is not it. In fact joy is something that we find in God and in Him alone. It is delighting in who He is no matter what is going on around us. It is seeing the beauty and power of His character in the hard as well as the happy. It is not even something that we find in Him and then walk away with but something we must keep coming back to Him for again and again. O, how I need to learn what I am writing here! How often do I look at the pounding sea rather than my peaceful Savior.
But now you’re mentally rolling your eyes at me and saying, “Okay we get it Josh, old buddy old pal, we know we’re supposed to have joy in the Lord. But what does that even mean? We all know the Sunday school answer but come on Josh just tell us what it is in a practical sense.”
Well if I could give you a step by step list then I would kind of defeat my own point because then we would be seeking joy in our efforts to find joy rather than truly seeking it in the Lord. BUT I do think Paul tells us what rejoicing in the Lord looks like in a practical sense right there in the passage. What Paul says right after he restates the need to rejoice seems out of place, “…Let your reasonableness be known to everyone...” What might that have to do with rejoicing in the Lord?
I think a story told by R.C. Sproul Jr. might help illustrate. According to the story R.C. Sproul Senior had been counseling a woman who had been struggling with still feeling guilt for a sin she had already asked to be forgiven for. She told him that she had prayed over and over for forgiveness but still felt as though she wasn’t forgiven. R.C. Sproul advised her to pray and ask for God’s forgiveness. The woman replied that she had already done that again and again to which he responded, “No, you need to pray and ask God to forgive you for not believing Him.” The lesson from this is often we rely on how we feel rather than what we know to be true about God. But what does this have to do with being reasonable?
I think if any of us is honest with ourselves we are not, at least deep down, reasonable people. We’re all, at our core, selfish and sinful human beings. I found what John MacArthur had to say about “reasonableness” to be very helpful. In his commentary on this passage, MacArthur says, “This refers to contentment with and generosity towards others. It can also refer to mercy or leniency toward the faults and failures of others. It can even refer to patience in someone who submits to injustice or mistreatment without retaliating.” In other words part of taking our joy from the Lord is living as He has directed us and in a way that reflects His character. If you are looking for a way to rejoice in the Lord start by submitting to His thoughts and attitudes towards your circumstances. Let the way you live reflect the joy of God in you. Perhaps then by living out joy we will experience it more completely.
And next Paul says, “Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. “ The next part of practical rejoicing in the Lord is to give submit your anxieties to Him by taking your requests to Him with thanksgiving! Again we must ask ourselves if we trust the Lord. If we say yes (even if we don’t feel yes) then we must use mind over matter to submit ourselves to that trust. Those things that are worrying you bring them to Him trusting that He will take care of you. Peter says in 1 Peter 5:6-7 says, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” First you humble yourself. You take your understanding and submit it to His. Then you cast your cares on Him. Why? Because HE CARES!!!! The God of the universe cares! If only we could truly grasp this how much more we would allow the cares of this world to vanish in the light of God’s greatness!
So we take our anxieties to Him. But Paul adds, “…with thanksgiving…” this is important because, just as our knowledge of God’s power and care must triumph over our feelings of doubt or uncertainty, our thankfulness forces us to push through the emotional fog to see, through all God has done, that He is indeed at hand. By thanking God for blessings past and present we come face to face with the record of God’s faithfulness.
So here’s my challenge to us all. Instead of trying to feel joyful in our circumstances let us endeavor to use these action steps to be joyful in the Lord. Let us submit our hearts and heads to God and live out the joy that is in Him regardless of how we feel.
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice!