I love when I am reading the bible and am hit in the face. I often times glance over familiar words like ‘rejoice’, thinking that I know what they mean and that I do it, so I’m fine. But the great thing about studying the bible and particularly studying for expositional teaching is that you try to deal with each word and how they fit together and labor to bring out the author’s intended meaning.
Recently I was plowing through Philippians and 3.1 was particularly encouraging: “Finally brethren, rejoice in the Lord…”
The fact of the matter is that God is commanding (present imperative) believers to be rejoicing. Furthermore, the rejoicing is present tense so therefore it is a call to a continual posture of this rejoicing. And finally the object of this rejoicing is to be God. So there you have it, a command from God to continually be engaged in the act of rejoicing in him.
What does it mean to rejoice? It is simply be happy, glad, or overjoyed in. Specifically for us here in Philippians it is a calling for you and me to be satisfied, happy, overjoyed in the Lord.
We know what this is all about. Men if you are on a date with your wife, or ladies with your husband; you just want to pause the world, everything is good and right, no obligations or interruptions, just enjoying the one you love.
Or perhaps you have been on a vacation and wanted to just grow roots into the sand and sit and be solar powered in the wonderful sun with the beach playing its symphonic melodies via the waves and birds.
But how much more the privileged and sacred calling to find and experience the utmost contentment, satisfaction, delight, joy and happiness in the ultimate source of all that is good?!
So then these commands to rejoice are really words of grace. They come as confrontational commands to us to charge us to take our eyes and minds (affections) off of ourselves and rivet them upon the gloriously beautiful one. It is a calling to pull away from the glass mirror that reflects our imperfections and to draw near to the written mirror (Jam. 1.23-25) that reflects the divine perfections and beauty.
Specifically in the context of Philippians Paul is charging Christians to march in step with the divine agenda of putting the gospel first (1.27ff) walking in unity and perseverance, characterized by humility. A great way to do this is to look away from yourself and look to God, and in this looking at God, if we truly see him, we love and rejoice in him; we are happily satisfied and gloriously delighted in him.
How practical is this in our lives? In our churches? In our families? But we just gloss over these words with reproachable indifference.
So let us take our eyes off ourselves and look at Jesus as the hero; famous for his loving and glorious condescension, death and exaltation. So then when impressed by Jesus, rejoicing in Jesus is not laborious, but a privilege.
I cannot exhort you enough to discipline yourself to:
- recount and remember who you are in Christ and who you were outside of Christ,
- remember who Jesus is, what he left in heaven for you, what he did for you,
- and you with sanctified anticipation, wait eagerly for him to come again.
Rejoice in the Lord and you will love the gospel. Love the gospel and you will rejoice in the Lord.
