I would like to read some Psalms first: Psalm 16. Let us read these verses together.
Psalm 16:11:
Thou wilt show me the path of life:
In Thy presence is fulness of joy;
In Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
There is another Psalm I would like to read: Psalm 89, verses 15 and 16.
Psalm 89:15-16:
Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound:
They walk, O Lord, in the light of Thy countenance.
In Thy name do they rejoice all the day;
And in Thy righteousness are they exalted.
Finally, a couple of verses in Philippians—and we will be staying in Philippians.
Philippians 3:1:
Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not irksome, but for you it is safe.
Philippians 4:4:
Rejoice in the Lord always: again I will say, Rejoice.
Let us pray together.
Lord, we are glad to be here in Your presence, worshiping You this morning and declaring Your victory, knowing that You are God over all and Lord over all. Lord, we can just stand here and worship You together. We thank You for having this time together.
We pray that You would take Your Word and bring it strongly into our hearts, that it would warm us and strengthen us deep inside. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
One of the Psalms we read said, “Blessed are those that have the shout of joy.” I feel that is probably what is on my heart today. Recently, I have been helped a lot by this phrase in Philippians, and in a few other places: “Rejoice in the Lord.”
It set me back to studying the book of Philippians, studying joy in Philippians. This is a book very dear to a lot of people in this room. A number of people told me it is either their favorite book or a book they read often. Some people have studied it much. I think I do not even need to speak today; everybody is excited that we are talking about Philippians in general.
That is the way this book actually is. When you read it, you are joyful. You may not even know what you read, but you walk away like, “Yeah, that’s right.” You are just joyful.
It is not necessarily a teaching book, such a discourse of theology, or something so structured like the book of Romans. It is not necessarily a big corrective letter like 1 Corinthians or Galatians. There is a little correction, but mainly it is such a joyful letter—such an intimate, personal, pleasant letter. People read this letter over and over again.
Actually, when I was first saved, this was the first book I memorized. The problem is, I memorized it in a certain translation that later I felt was too weak, so I had to re-memorize it. Now my mind is mixed up, so I just paraphrase it all.
Today, I do not actually feel to share notes from all my studies. I am hoping that if you read the book of Philippians, if you squint your eyes and get a little blurry—do not get too detailed—one thing you will notice is joy.
Even if you read it very fast, even if you read it very carelessly—which we should not do—but even if you read it in a casual way, where you are not being too devotional or too studious, you cannot help but notice rejoice or joy. It shows up sixteen times. But actually, the whole letter is joyful. The whole thing is full of joy.
The flavor of this letter is joy. If there is an aspect of the fruit of the Spirit that you are tasting, you are tasting the taste of joy. When you bite into this letter and begin to read it, you feel, “This is joy. It is so good.”
I would like to go through this concept of rejoicing in the Lord, using some of the verses that say that word and some of the verses that do not, because actually the whole book is joyful.
It is a little messy because it is a big splash of joy everywhere. I cannot say, at least in my mind, that I am organizing it chronologically according to the order of verses. I mention this so that you do not feel I am too scattered. There is some logic in my brain. When I am thinking of it, I am organizing this a certain way.
I mention it so that we do not all walk away and say, “What did he share on?” “I do not know, but he said joy all the time.” That is kind of how you feel when you read Philippians, so it is okay if you walk away that way.
Basically, there are about four things to get into. Two of them are things to learn about joy—principles we can learn from the example here, from watching this man of joy, Paul, as he writes this letter. Then there are two exhortations: two times in Philippians where it says, “Rejoice in the Lord.” We will take these as two pushes for us to actively rejoice in the Lord.
I am going to squash many verses together and pull them around from different places, but we are squinting our eyes, remember. We are just looking at joy and rejoicing in this whole letter—a blurred view, in a way, or a panoramic view.
The first thing to learn is that our joy is in the Lord. Our joy is in the Lord.
Another way of saying it is like the Psalms we just read: in the presence of the Lord is the fullness of joy. So where do we find our joy? Only in the Lord.
I made a mistake earlier. I used the word happy already, and I did not mean happy, because today I am going to pick on happy. We are going to separate the two for now.
Every time you are in the presence of the Lord, when you are right with the Lord, you have joy. This is where it is found. When you separate yourself from the presence of the Lord, you do not have the joy.
We can compare it with happy. Happiness depends on hap, or happenstance, or circumstances. I actually looked up the word a little bit, just the way we use it in English. We have changed the meaning in the last two hundred years.
Back in the day, happy or happiness originally had to do with luck or chance. You are happy because you have good fortune. So the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of fortune. Happy has to do with whether things go well your way.
Now we have turned it to speak of our feeling of pleasure, and it makes sense, because when things go well our way, we have a good feeling about it. We have pleasure. When things are fortunate for us, it makes us have the feeling of happiness.
I am not against the way we use the word. I am just saying that, even from following how the words come about, we can say happy has to do with what happens. It has to do with our circumstances.
Today you may be happy; yesterday you may have been sad. Both of those may depend on what happened. Sorry, I know that sounds confusing. Both of those depend on your circumstances.
For example, perhaps a few days ago you ate a steak dinner at night, and you were so happy. This was because of the circumstance of a steak dinner. But let us say tonight you go home and have salad for dinner.
Now, this does not apply to everybody, I noticed. It may not even apply to all the people here who love steak, because depending on what is going on with you, you may rather have salad for dinner.
Let us say today at lunchtime, out of joy in the Lord and fellowship with the brethren, you get carried away. You have five cookies, you have two plates, and you are so full that when you get home for dinner tonight, you are so glad that all you have is salad. If you had a steak, it would knock you over.
So even things that make you happy one day may not make you happy the next day. Take the weather, for example. Some days it is sunny outside and shining, and everyone is happy. You go outside to play or to do something.
But sometimes you have planted a garden, put out grass seed, or have a new bush. You are so happy when it rains because the rain is going to help your garden. So these circumstances are sometimes neutral.
Sometimes our circumstances will be bad, and sometimes they will be good. In this corrupt, evil world, our circumstances are unknowable and not always fortunate. This is just our case.
It is impossible to always be happy, because happiness depends on your circumstances. That is just the nature of happiness. It is possible, however, to always rejoice.
The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5:16, “Rejoice always.” The formula for it is found in this letter: “Rejoice in the Lord always.” To rejoice always does not mean to be happy always.
Yesterday you may have sat in a comfortable chair at home. Today you are sitting in fold-up chairs for an hour or more. If your circumstances change, they can affect your happiness. Your comfort changes; things like this change.
You may have a car that is driving and working well, and then it may just explode or get wrecked into. Two people just told me how their car exploded, and mine got wrecked into and totaled. If our cars are our happiness determination, then our happiness is wavering all the time.
If our circumstances are all we have, then our emotions are going up and down all the time. But with real joy—the real joy in the Bible—we rejoice in the Lord. If we are rejoicing in the Lord, we rejoice in the Lord always.
If we are in the presence of the Lord, it can happen always. Circumstances may change, and things may happen to you, but your joy is steady and untouched. No one can mess with it. There is a constant of joy because it rests in the Lord.
They can touch you. They can touch your body. They can touch your circumstances. People can mess with you all day long, but they cannot stop your joy.
This is the case with the apostle Paul in this letter. When we read this, his circumstances are not good, according to what all of us here would think. He is in prison. He is limited.
At the end of the book of Acts, we find that the apostle Paul is in prison for two years. He has better circumstances than they could be; his later imprisonment is worse. But at this time he is limited. He is in his own rented dwelling, but he cannot leave.
He is chained to a guard at all times. For us, just having a roommate or housemate seems like such a limitation sometimes. Kids grow up sharing a bedroom, or in college you might have a roommate, and you feel, “I just wish I had my own place.”
But imagine if you were handcuffed to somebody day and night for two years. The person keeps changing too. Just when you become friends, another one, who may be even worse, comes. His circumstances were not good.
We do not like to be limited. A little baby will cry if it is in pain, but it will also cry if it gets limited, just like it is in pain. Nothing is wrong, but its foot is stuck, and the scream is as if its hand fell off.
We are the same way as adults. When we have some limitation, we want to rebel against it. It is unpleasant to us. We want our freedom.
Paul the apostle wants his freedom for good reasons. He wants to be able to roam around the city of Rome and share the gospel. I did not mean to play on words there at all; I just noticed it as I was saying that.
But he wants to go to different cities. He wants to be free to be led by the Lord. Yet in his chains and limitation, he is the Lord’s free man. He is still free, spiritually speaking.
Physically, he is limited, but no one touches his joy. Thankfully, he is still able to write letters, so he wrote this letter to the Philippians.
Another thing going on with him is that he preached the gospel to people who came to visit him in Rome. This was good and encouraged the Christians there in Rome to continue preaching the gospel. This is found in Philippians 1.
He is telling the Philippians about his circumstances. He is saying, “I do not want you guys to be unaware of what is going on. I have been able to share. People know I am in prison for the sake of Christ, and this has turned out to be a good thing.”
He says that some of the Christians have gone out and preached the gospel. They took encouragement, and they are proclaiming the Word. But here is a bad circumstance: others—probably Judaizers—go out and preach the gospel out of strife.
They preach even to make things worse for Paul. They are not preaching the gospel as we would say; they are preaching a false gospel. They are preaching things beyond Christ. They are preaching other stuff. This is a sorrow to his heart.
But even with this, in Philippians 1:18, Paul mentions the word rejoice. He says, “At least Christ is preached.”
Here is a man not only thinking about himself. This is a man of God rejoicing in the Lord. He can rise above his circumstances and say, “I can at least praise God that the name of Christ is being proclaimed.”
“I do not like it. I do not like their motive behind it. I do not like what they are saying. But I can say, ‘I rejoice that Christ is being proclaimed.’”
He also rejoices that these circumstances are going to work out for something good. God is using these circumstances with the apostle Paul to conform him to the image of Christ. He is using even these bad circumstances to bring about His own purpose.
God is working all this for a reason. We can learn from the example of the apostle Paul.
He has another thing going on in his heart. Like we read in other places, he has sorrow for all the churches, a burden for all the churches. When others are struggling and things are going wrong, he is torn up about it because this is a man of God praying for the saints.
Things are going on around him; things are going on in other churches, even beyond Philippi. In Philippi, remember, there is some strife happening. In Philippians 4, he mentions two sisters by name. These two sisters are struggling and are not at peace together.
They seem to be leading sisters—active, mature sisters—but for whatever reason, it does not even seem to be doctrinal. It seems to be some personality conflict. They have some contention.
This is the church that Paul really loves. For him to hear of this—perhaps through Epaphroditus, who was visiting him and bringing him a gift—it brings sorrow to his heart.
In the midst of this, though, he is able to write a letter and rejoice the whole time. It is not fake. He is not thinking, “These people just need to think about joy and have joy, so I am going to mention joy sixteen times while I write this letter, and hopefully they will get that.”
In political speeches, they can purposefully put in a phrase or word twenty-five times to make you remember it. It is very crafty. But you do not get that feeling here. This is natural. He is just rejoicing. He just has joy.
I do not think he planned it out, wrote down sixteen instances of joy, cut them out, and placed them in each spot. This is natural because he is a man of joy, and he is really rejoicing in the Lord.
The Philippians know his character. They know by experience what this man is like, because roughly ten years earlier he was in prison in Philippi, right where they were. So he is writing this letter to them ten years later, and he is back in prison.
When their church was being birthed, when he first went to Philippi, he preached the gospel. Remember the demon-possessed girl who was going around saying things? He cast a demon out of her, it caused a problem, and he and Silas were thrown into jail.
At this time, Paul is in jail for about two years. But in their former experience of him in jail, he was there only one night. Why? Because he rejoiced that night in the Lord.
He and Silas had been beaten and whipped. The lashings were on their backs, and his wounds were still open. We know that because later he had to be bandaged. He was in prison, actually in the depth of the prison, and they put locks around his feet.
He was very limited, and they were singing, praising, and praying deep in the prison. The other prisoners could hear Paul and Silas doing this.
Then suddenly there was a big earthquake that shattered the place, similar to what happened in Richmond recently. Except, how many of us were rejoicing in the Lord at that time? Maybe some of us looked up and said, “I need to start rejoicing.”
This earthquake shook the foundations of the prison, and the doors flung open. The chains fell off them. That is a strange earthquake to do that. Somehow, it unlocked those as well.
Suddenly all the prisoners were free. These joyful men of God who had been praising and praying were alert enough—probably also thanking the Lord, saying, “Wow.” Then, because of what happened, all the other prisoners were frozen.
Kind of like we were here when that earthquake happened: most of us were like, “Wow, what happened?” But these prisoners knew what happened. They knew it was from God.
All the prisoners stood still because they knew these two strange Christians were praising the Lord victoriously, with blood on their backs, in pain, still praising God and rejoicing in the Lord in their suffering and bondage.
God brought this earthquake about, and the prisoners were frozen still. Now the guard of the prison had been put in charge to keep these men. He was a man with a family; he had a wife and children. We know that from Acts 16.
He pulled out his sword to kill himself. We may not think of this because we are in America, but for a jailer there, losing his prisoners was a big deal. Maybe something worse than death would happen to him.
In some strange Roman honorable way, because he had failed in his duty, he was going to kill himself. But Paul stopped him and said, “We are all here.”
This man fell down to his knees and said, “What must I do to be saved?” These are believers to whom Paul is actually writing. I wonder how many of the prisoners got saved that night as well.
The jailer did get saved. They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved.” He took them back to his house, and they shared with his family. His family all got saved—wife and children.
Then, after that, you have to picture Paul still bleeding on his back. They fixed his wounds, which had never been bandaged. Then, after his wounds were bandaged, he turned around and baptized that family.
This is a beautiful situation: this man of joy at the beginning of the church’s experience. These are the people receiving this letter. They know this man’s testimony is real joy. This is the real deal.
They may have wondered, “Why is it taking two years this time? Where is the earthquake for the prison blast?” But this time, that is part of his suffering as well.
Not only was he there for two years that we know of, but from day one in prison he did not know when he would go on trial. A week later, he still did not know. Whenever Caesar felt like it, that was when he would see him. There was no court date. He was just waiting, and waiting, and waiting.
That is a type of suffering. To wait in suspense, especially in circumstances where you might be killed, tempts you to be anxious. It tempts you to complain to God.
But this is not a man sitting there saying, “God, why are these bad things happening to me? God, why do You let this happen? Why, even though I am trying to do good, do I get thrown in prison?” He does not have this attitude. He is just rejoicing in the Lord.
Suspense can really tear our hearts apart, or it can be nothing. As human beings, we like to know when something is going to happen.
Because of our lack of good organization for this upcoming retreat, we do not know many details that we should know by now. This is hard on people, and rightly so. We should know what time we are going to start.
Some are asking, “When are you going to start? Tell us when you are going to start. When are you going to stop?” We should know some of these things. The suspense can actually mess with us.
We learned the meaning of “if the Lord wills and the creek does not rise, we will go and do this or that” recently here in Richmond. Because the creek rose, we did not have electricity for some weeks.
I was told some weeks ago that I would share on Sunday. But I knew that “if the Lord wills and the creek does not rise” was the thing. That is not really in the Bible. “If the Lord wills” is in the Bible, and it says, “If the Lord wills and we live,” so that is worse than the creek rising.
Anyway, suspense can get to you. On Saturday, I was told, “Okay, you are not sharing.” Then the next Saturday, “Okay, you are not sharing,” because we did not have electricity.
But this man of God is not touched by suspense because he is rejoicing in the Lord in all circumstances. He can live today just enjoying the presence of God.
This is our secret way. In the book, there is a beautiful verse where he says, “For to me to live is Christ.” This whole life of the man is in the presence of the Lord by the life of Christ, and so he is able to rejoice constantly.
Another lesson, or principle, is that our rejoicing is made full, or abounds, when we fellowship with brothers and sisters.
It is interesting: as you notice the words of joy, more than half have to do with the saints. This is not a contradiction. You might say, “Then the saints can affect my joy, which means my joy is affected by circumstances.” But that is not true.
The constant joy of fellowshipping with the Lord, the constant joy of being in the Lord’s presence, is untouchable. But that joy can be abounding, made full, fulfilled, or abundant when we touch the life of Christ in another Christian.
In 1 John 1:3-4, the apostle John explains this. He says, “Our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son.” Then he says that the things they had seen and heard, they shared with others so that they could have fellowship with them.
The fellowship John was having with the Lord, he shared with them so that they could have fellowship with him. That is the fellowship experience: I have experienced the presence of the Lord, I share some of that with you, and we have fellowship together.
You share some of your experience of the presence of the Lord, of the life of the Lord, and we have fellowship with one another. Then verse 4 says, “These things we write, that our joy may be made full.”
We have joy. You could be a hermit and have joy—but not really, because the Lord will lead you back to the church. You cannot hide forever. In your own quiet time, you can rejoice in the Lord, but the Lord calls us to something broader and bigger: rejoicing with the saints.
The first time joy comes up in Philippians is in Philippians 1:4. In verse 3, Paul says, “I thank my God upon all my remembrance of you.” Then in verse 4, he says that in every supplication for them, he makes his supplication with joy.
Why? Because of their fellowship in the gospel from the first day until then. Every time he is praying for them, he has joy because of the fellowship they have with him.
Amongst us, if you pray for believers you know, you do not always have joy. A lot of times you have sorrow. Many times when we pray, we pray with groanings and sorrow. Parents pray for their children with sorrow and groanings because perhaps someone is not walking with the Lord, or there is some struggle going on.
But have you ever prayed for someone, and in your remembrance of them you remember their sharing of Christ with you? When you pray for them, it puts a smile in your heart. You pray for them and you are so happy—I used the wrong word. You are so joyful.
Actually, happy is not wrong. Happy happens. But joy happens even when there is sorrow. That is the difference.
Yes, we have sorrow when we are praying for some, but we still have joy in the Lord even while we are praying for them. In this case, when you have had the experience of real sharing of Christ with some people, and you are praying for them, it fulfills your joy. It gives you extra joy.
It is a taste of more of Christ. We meet more of Christ in each other, and that is why our joy increases. It is not something separate; it is actually an increase of the joy of Christ.
In Philippians 1:25, after the verse, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain,” Paul speaks about his struggle. He is in prison and does not know whether he will be beheaded.
He says, “I desire to depart and be with Christ; for it is very far better.” The presence of the Lord is so much stronger. To leave all suffering behind and be with the Lord purely, face to face, is better.
But it is more profitable for them that he stays. So in verse 25, he says, “I know that I shall abide, yea, and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith.”
Here is something to learn: we have joy when we care about the joy of others.
One reason we do not have joy sometimes is because we only care about our own joy. But if you forget about yourself and consider others, if you get to help someone come through to the presence of the Lord or to following the Lord, it brings an abundance of joy within you.
It happens when you lead someone who is not saved to come to Christ. Sometimes this is the most joyful thing in your life: to be there with them and see them receive the joy of the Lord, receive eternal life, and receive salvation.
It seems more joyful than when you yourself got saved. You seem to be smiling even more because you actually know more of what they got. It seems to be just the best thing.
The same is true with believers. When somebody is able to come through to Christ, and you have been praying for them, caring about them, and laboring for them, you have helped in their progress of joy and faith. It is such a wonderful thing.
Inside your heart, you are leaping for joy. You are shouting with this shout of joy. We lack it sometimes because we are not thinking of others.
Sometimes you say, “I am just missing my joy.” One thing you can do is pray for the joy of others and try to bring joy to others. Do not merely look at yourself and question all the time, “Why am I not happy? Why am I not doing well? Why am I depressed?”
There is a way through, but there is something of an abundance of joy when we are serving God’s people.
In Philippians 2:2, the word joy is mentioned again. Paul says, “Make full my joy, that ye be of the same mind, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” If you have this oneness together as believers, that is what fulfills my joy.
He is pleading with them on behalf of the Lord: “Fill my joy up.” This division among you breaks my heart. I have sorrow from it. Deep down, he still rejoices in the Lord, but there is sorrow among us when there is division—a deep sorrow because the Lord is sorrowful.
When we can, in meekness and humility, lay down our strife with one another, stick together, go on together, and diligently keep the unity we have in the Lord, joy is full.
Paul makes his appeal in Philippians 2:1 based on what they have experienced of Christ. Can we go on together, even though someone is so different? Even though someone’s personality has really offended me, can we drop bitterness? Can we drop our hurts? Can we even drop the demand that our own opinions be cared for, and maintain the unity of the brethren?
When this unity is going on, joy is full. It is a beautiful thing. Why not rather be done wrong and stick together? Why not rather not always get our own way, but be at peace together, love each other, and go on together?
“Fulfill my joy.” Be in this unity. Fellowship with the saints really affects our joy. It does not affect that depth of joy in the Lord that no one can touch, but it affects whether our joy is abounding.
Later in Philippians 2:17-18, Paul says he is rejoicing that they are rejoicing, and he asks them to rejoice that he is rejoicing. We need to share our joy with each other.
Let us say you are having a joyful moment. Do not merely have a joyful moment—rejoice always, right? But perhaps the Lord touches your heart. There is an abundance of joy. You have been in the presence of the Lord. Share your joy with others.
When someone else is rejoicing in the Lord, do not be jealous. This is strange. In the world, no one shares their happiness; they share their sorrows. Misery loves company, but happiness wants to hide so no one takes it.
But joy also loves company. The way it works is different from happiness. When you are happy and tell everybody else you are happy, people get upset. They think you are proud. They say, “You are happy because you got this, but if you had my situation…” People get bitter.
If somebody makes a lot of money at work, they never tell the other employees, right? They got a bonus, but they do not smile; they slip it in their pocket. But if they got a demerit or got fired, they tell all the staff. They publish it everywhere and tell how bad everything was.
Nobody is quiet about their sorrows. But with your joy—the joy of Christ—share it, and share it over and over. The more you share it, the more it will increase. It will help others have joy, and you can share in each other’s joy.
Paul is saying, “I rejoice in common with you all; rejoice in common with me.” Let us rejoice together. I am rejoicing that you are rejoicing; you are rejoicing, I am rejoicing. There is a big circle of joy. We are helping each other, rejoicing together, and going on together.
This is the joyful Christian life. We do not do it alone. If you try to have the joyful Christian life by yourself, it will not work, because Christ is calling us to stick together, enjoy Him together, and go on together.
Rejoicing in the Lord always, we need each other. Sometimes you feel down, sometimes you feel pressed, and you search before the Lord, “What is wrong? What is going on?”
Sometimes what you need is simply to fellowship with somebody. Sometimes it is a matter of calling somebody and saying, “Hey, can we talk some? Can you share with me what you read in your morning time? I just need my feet washed a little bit.”
Sometimes we just need fellowship. It can pull you right out of depression, right out of your sorrows, right out of yourself, and lift you back up into the presence of the Lord. We need each other.
If you go on by yourself, thinking you are so strong, you dry out. At least you will notice, “I do not have the joy of the Lord.” But when we stick together and have real fellowship, where we share Christ together, there is joy.
We come to the church gatherings and share Christ with each other. We get together for meals, call each other, or simply come over. We share Christ with each other.
I had a dry period in my life where I had no Christian meetings to go to for months. My circumstances were just that way. I was starving for fellowship.
Then I sat down and listened to a song with another believer. Tears came down my face, and my joy was restored. We were just listening to a hymn or something like that, but it was some touch of fellowship.
We starve without fellowship. Why is it that sometimes we look so gloomy? Even consecrated believers can sometimes have long, downcast faces. We are suffering with the Lord, pressing on, being faithful, and not doing outward sins that somebody can see. Yet sometimes, what is going on?
Sometimes what is going on is that we have not had fellowship recently. Even though we are coming to things, we have not shared the joy of the Lord with one another.
Think if you are a new Christian, a baby Christian, whatever age you may be. If you have just been saved, you may be in a room with a Christian who is very mature. We have some mature Christians in this room.
Brand-new Christians often feel, “What can I do? How can I have fellowship with this person?” Our thinking is a little backwards.
We can feel overwhelmed with some people in the room, or think, “I do not have anything to share with that person because they know everything I know. They know more than I know. Everything I say, they may correct because I probably got a little bit wrong.” So we are afraid to fellowship.
But think about a family setting. What brings more joy to a family: hiring a maid who is an adult, can speak intelligently, can clean, cook, tutor, teach, play chess, and do all these good circumstantial things—or having a baby?
The baby does not clean; the baby makes a mess. The baby does not cook; the baby eats a bunch and spits it up. The baby is more trouble. But look at a baby in a family: there is more joy, right?
A baby Christian, simply by sharing some life of Christ, makes everybody joyful. Sometimes we are not as joyful as we ought to be because no one has gotten saved recently. We are all too mature. We need some baby Christians to come in and mess things up. No, not really.
But we need baby Christians. We need Christians of all ages and all places. All we need from each other is this: share your portion of Christ, and it will increase the joy of everyone.
A prayer that is incorrect, perhaps from an immature Christian who got something wrong, can make everybody smile. Why is that? Because that young believer shared their portion of Christ.
We are not smiling because of the correctness of the prayer or how fluent it was. We are smiling because the Christ in them touched our hearts. That is it. We need each other in this way.
In Philippians 4:1, Paul calls those believers “my joy.” It becomes like that. The saints are actually your joy. Really, Christ is your joy, but your experience with the Christians is Christ. You are experiencing and sharing the Lord together.
When you think of them, pray for them, and talk about them, they are your joy. It is an abundance of joy, like a parent calling a child “my little bundle of joy.”
In Philippians 4:10, Paul tells them how he rejoiced that they revived their thought for him. He rejoiced in the Lord.
Because of their faithfulness in the Lord and their fellowship with him, they had sent a love gift—some supply and help. They also sent Epaphroditus with some portion of Christ to share.
They sent him more than a physical gift. Paul is not rejoicing in the Lord merely because he received physical help. He rejoices because he received fellowship from saints in Philippi who were praying for him.
He mentions in Philippians 1 how they were praying for him, and how this would work out for his salvation through their prayers and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
This fellowship that came from the believers in Philippi brought him to rejoice in the Lord. Now, he was always rejoicing in the Lord, but now he is rejoicing in the Lord. Does that make sense?
On top of your rejoicing in the Lord, because of the saints, you rejoice in the Lord. When somebody is doing well and being faithful, it makes you joyful.
Like the apostle John says in 2 John and 3 John, “I rejoiced greatly” because he heard that believers were walking in the truth. When he heard of their progress and faithfulness, it made his joy abundant.
You may think that your progress does not have much to do with the church, but if you are faithful in the little bit of progress the Lord shows you to walk in, you will bring joy to everyone.
It may seem like nothing. You may feel, “What do I have to offer?” But you can bring joy to everyone in this room simply by walking faithfully with the Lord. You can also bring sorrow if you do not walk faithfully with the Lord.
In Philippians 2:28-29, the word joy appears again. Epaphroditus is coming back to the saints in Philippi. Paul sends him back. He had come from there, bringing fellowship and help.
They had heard that he was sick—he almost died. Paul writes that this man of God, for the sake of the work, drew near to death. He suffered.
Paul says, “Receive him therefore in the Lord with all joy.” He even mentions that Epaphroditus did not die, so Paul would not have sorrow upon sorrow. Even the apostle Paul has sorrow, but he is still rejoicing in the Lord.
Sometimes the Lord is simply having mercy. Paul says, “I did not have sorrow upon sorrow.” When Epaphroditus comes, simply by seeing him, they will rejoice.
Are there Christians whom, when you see them, you simply rejoice? I will not say all, because we are a mess. But are there some Christians you see and simply rejoice?
The reason is that you rejoice because you have had fellowship with them. Perhaps it is easier to picture someone far away, someone you see once a year at a conference, someone with whom you do not rub shoulders or have sorrows.
Every time you see them, you have joy. You think about them and have joy. But this can happen with all of us here.
Do you ever come to a gathering and inwardly smile, thinking, “I am so glad to see that person”? Or perhaps someone has not been here for a while. Epaphroditus had not been in Philippi for a while.
When you see them, you want to go up and squeeze them, hug them, and almost hurt them—not hurt them, but you know what I mean. You have to restrain yourself, but you are so joyful simply to see them.
“I am so glad to see you.” This is the joy of the Lord in the saints. We have joy in fellowship.
These two principles are extremely essential—things we can experience and learn from this letter. Now I want to look at Philippians 3:1. Paul says they are to rejoice in the Lord.
He says, “To write the same things to you is not bothersome for me.” He could talk about it all day. He says, “Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice always. Again I will say, rejoice.” He can say it over and over because it is real.
This is something helpful. He tells them, “For you, it is safe.” To write the same things is not irksome to him, and for them it is safe. Rejoicing in the Lord is a protection.
Like Nehemiah 8:10 says, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” When you do not rejoice in the Lord, you have no strength.
When you do not rejoice in the Lord, you fall into depression. Spiritually, you are low. When you are in that state of depression, you are opened up to all kinds of temptations.
There are temptations that normally, when you are strong in the Lord and rejoicing in Him, do not even touch you. They do not even faze you. But when you are down, you are most open to temptation.
When we are depressed, when we are down, it is unsafe. Our strength is gone. We have strength for all things through Him who empowers us, but when we are not with Him, not rejoicing in the Lord, not in His presence, we have no strength.
The believers in Philippi were in danger of the Judaizers coming in and teaching a false gospel, because they basically went everywhere the apostle Paul went. This can happen to us. Some false teaching can grab you when you are down.
But when you are rejoicing in the Lord, you are sensitive to the Lord’s presence. When something false is shared, inwardly you know, “That is not right.” Nothing is appealing to you.
But let us say you have been failing in your Christian walk, and you stay down. You do not come back to rejoice in the Lord. You may be opened up to say, “Is there another way to be perfected? Is there another way for me to do this Christian life?”
Someone gives you a list of rules. The Judaizers say, “If you keep these things, you will be mature,” like they did to the Galatian believers. They say, “Yes, it is true that you believe on Jesus to be saved, but how are you going to be mature without these rules?”
“If you are not doing these things, how are you going to be mature?” They bring in things aside from Christ, and it catches you because you are not rejoicing in the Lord.
For us, it is safe to rejoice in the Lord. So Paul exhorts us: do this as an action. Rejoice in the Lord. Otherwise, you have no strength. The joy of the Lord is really the only way we are strong as Christians.
Sometimes we may be down because of our sins. We may have sinned, fallen into some failure, and not gotten back up. Because of that, we are down.
When you sin, the Holy Spirit gently convicts you deep inside. He draws you to repent and turn back to God. This is a gentle, loving voice—the voice of a Shepherd bringing a sheep back.
But on top of that, when you are down, you also hear the voice of the enemy condemning you and yelling at you. There seems to be another voice in your mind, another thought coming in.
It is not the gentle, convicting feeling from the Holy Spirit. When you sin and have fallen down, you can also feel condemnation because the accuser of the brethren wants to accuse you. He wants to get you while you are down.
That wolf comes to steal, kill, and destroy. The wolf is after the sheep. When you are down, to stay down is dangerous. You can get into despair, and many of us are in and out of this despair often because of our sins.
What is the way through? This is an action: an action of rejoicing. We can look at the example of King David.
David sinned in what seems to be the worst sins you can outwardly commit: adultery and murder. We would think this is a man who should not even get up. You can imagine the kinds of thoughts coming to his mind outside of the Lord.
He was in despair because of his sins. “How can I, a man who has written these Psalms, a man of God, the king of Israel, fall into such a spot?” He was in great despair.
What did he do? In Psalm 51, we read his prayer and seeking of the Lord. He came back to the Lord’s presence, and in God’s light he was exposed.
He said, “I acknowledge my sin before You. You desire truth in the inward parts.” He exposed it all and asked God for mercy.
He stood there and said, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation.”
“Cast me not away from Thy presence. Renew a right spirit in me.” This is his prayer. This is our prayer.
When you find yourself down, when you find yourself not right with the Lord because of your sins, do not hide from the light of God. Do not cower into a corner and listen to all those evil thoughts.
Instead, go directly to the Lord to rejoice in the Lord. The way through is by the precious blood. If you are cast away from God’s presence, you do not have the joy of His salvation.
But like Psalm 51 says, “Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation.” It is when you come back to His presence.
Like 1 John 1 says, walk in the light and confess your sins. Because God is faithful and just, He will wash you clean.
Sometimes we are down, and it may not even be because of anything we have done. One attack of the enemy is simply to oppress us.
Spiritually, you feel like you are being sat on or squashed. This may happen before you are about to do something good. You may be wanting to go to a prayer meeting, trying to get to a gathering with saints, or even trying to have your Bible time in the morning.
Suddenly, for whatever reason, you are so down, so oppressed. Or perhaps at night you are trying to have a little prayer time, but suddenly you are overly tired—as if spiritually you are so tired that it affects your body.
Spiritually you are so down that it affects your body and can even make you sick at times. What is the way through? Rejoice in the Lord.
We have to actively turn to Christ, turn to His presence, and praise Him. Speak out His victory. Praise Who He is and what He has done. Take your eyes off yourself and your circumstances.
In praise and joyful declaration of Christ, you will be lifted out of that and brought into the real, constant, solid joy of the Lord. It does not even matter if your body is tired or sick. You will not have that feeling on your spirit. You will be lifted completely out of it.
This is not just something to experience when we are down. This is a safety factor.
In Philippians 3, Paul speaks of pursuing the Lord, giving up all the things he used to pursue, think were good, care about, and be proud of. He saw them all as nothing compared to knowing Christ and having Christ.
This is the pursuit of joy—I mean, this is the joyful pursuit. This is the pursuit of Christ. You are after Christ. If you are actively after Christ, you will be rejoicing in the Lord always.
This is the way to be safe, even from temptations. If we are in and out of this, of course we will often fall into despair. But the positive way is not merely to come back into joy; it is to maintain the joy of rejoicing in the Lord.
You have to pursue Christ and pursue more of Him, because the more we get of Christ, the more joyful we are.
“I want to know Him. I want to know the power of His resurrection. I want to know the fellowship, the sharing, of His sufferings.”
Even when I am suffering, I take it together with the Lord. I am not complaining. The Lord did not complain. I am like a sheep, like a lamb led to the slaughter, just like the Lord.
When this circumstance is happening, I am rejoicing in the Lord because I am fellowshipping with His sufferings. You cannot mess with this kind of Christian.
If you give them more suffering, they get more joy, because they fellowship in the Lord’s sufferings with Him. If you try to hurt them, they experience more of Christ. You cannot do it.
At least as far as joy is concerned, this Christian is invincible.
Lastly, in Philippians 4:4, Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord always: again I will say, Rejoice.” Then in verse 5 he says, “Let your gentleness be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.”
It may sound as though he is saying the Lord is about to return, but I do not think that is what he is saying. He is saying the Lord’s presence is near.
Let your gentleness be manifested. What happens to us that causes us to lose our joy? We stand up for ourselves. It is survival of the fittest among us. “If I do not take up for myself, who will?”
The Bible says the meek will inherit the earth, but people say, “But I have the earth right now.” This is the attitude.
But in gentleness, because the Lord is with you, let Him handle it. Let Him take up for you.
Survival of the fittest works with wolves. They have to handle themselves in the forest. But it does not work with sheep. If survival of the fittest were really the way nature worked, there would be no reason sheep should even exist in creation.
Sheep have no chance against creation. Sheep exist because God is their Shepherd. Sheep exist because of shepherds, and that is like us.
We have no chance in this world. How are we going to survive if we turn the other cheek? There is no way to make it, right? If we go the extra mile, we will always be walking. Our legs will fall off. We will always be taken advantage of.
But the Lord is next to you. The Lord is with you. You are in His presence. Do not act like He is far away. Do not do this life on your own. Do not strive and struggle. The Lord is near.
Let your gentleness be shown to everybody because you can afford to do that. God is handling all of you. The sheep can be gentle and meek because the Shepherd is right there with them.
They can go through the valley of the shadow of death. They can go through anything because He is next to them, because He is near. The Lord is near.
For that reason, do not be anxious about all your cares. We have many things happening to us, many things to be concerned about, many things to worry about and stress over.
We have things with work, school, people in our lives, family, and other things. Some things are so much upon us. Our hearts get stirred up, our emotions are wild, and we cannot control our thoughts.
The problem is that we are not rejoicing in the Lord. Here is how you do it: submit your requests to God.
This is what Philippians 4:6-7 says: let your requests be made known to God by prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving. Do not do this by yourself. The Lord is near.
Take all the things going on in your life to the Lord. It is like you come with Him, and He says, “Come and yoke with Me.” You put on the yoke, unload your burden to the Lord, and together you handle it.
That is how we get rest for our souls. That is how we receive the peace of God. It protects our minds, protects our hearts, and guards us.
Then, in that peaceful joy of the Lord, we can go on living this life as Christians. This earth is going to have many cares.
Philippians 4 does not say that once you pray and give something to the Lord, it is all taken care of in the sense that you never have to think about it again. That is not true. You still have the same problems.
It does not say, “Submit it to the Lord, and He will do it exactly how you ask.” It says His peace will protect you. That is what it says.
With the peace of God, with your heart calm and your thoughts not wild but focused, together with the Lord you can handle it.
Even in a busy job, even when you are handling many things at once, multitasking and doing whatever, maintain the peace of God. Abide in Christ. Keep His presence and do it together with Him.
Otherwise, your mind gets scattered. You sit down to read the Bible and cannot do it because your thoughts are everywhere. You try to go to bed at night and cannot do it because you keep thinking of all these different things.
Bring all your cares to the Lord. This is the exercise for us to do constantly. Keep our minds in the things of the Lord.
All of our life is together with the Lord: “For to me to live is Christ.” Because we are together with the Lord, our joy is constant. We are always rejoicing.
We do not need to be told that we should rejoice.
This is not a rule. This is not merely an understanding or a teaching. I have not said anything new.
The question is: who today is going to choose to rejoice in the Lord? Who today will spiritually put their eyes toward the Lord?
Who among us today will choose to set our face toward His face, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much He exposes us, deals with us, and brings us to be right with Him?
When we are enjoying the Lord, all these other things that try to touch our hearts are like nothing. But outside of the Lord’s joy, you think the temptations are so hard.
You think, “This thing of the world, this thing that I keep falling into sin with, is so hard because I love it so much.” It is just not true.
When you are in the presence of the Lord, His presence is so much better that everything else is like nothing. When we are pursuing after His presence, everything else is like nothing.
Our Lord Jesus was a Man of sorrows. He had terrible circumstances, but He was a joyful Man on this earth.
He could weep over cities that were not receiving Him, and at almost the same moment, in the same breath, turn to the Father and rejoice. He was a Man with joy because He was in the Father’s presence.
This is our way. Even at the cross, He was separated from the Father. “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” For three hours.
Did He lose His joy? Actually, at that moment, because He was in the Father’s will, even though He did not feel the Father’s presence, even though He could not see the Father’s face, He was crying out, “Where are You?”
Yet He knew He was in the Father’s will. He knew that after the cross He would see the Father smile. He knew He would be raised up and seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
His joy sustained Him. For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross. He went forward.
This is the way in our life. Do we have a joy set before us today? Do we see the joy of God when He brings us together as His family?
In His joy, He smiles at you and says, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” Does anybody see that in front of them?
This is what I am after—toward the goal and for the prize. I want to see Him smile. I want to see His joy be abundant when He sees me.
If that joy can be in front of us—sorry.
If that joy is in front of us, we can press on together.
If that joy is in front of us, we can all today smile, be faithful, and rejoice in the Lord. It is because we see Him having joy, because we want to please Him, that we can rise up today and rejoice in the Lord.
It is because of the joy in front of us that today we can endure the crosses. Today we can rise up and suffer together with the Lord because we want to know Him more. We do not want to be apart from Him or apart from His presence.
This is a joyful day. This is a wonderful day. We are in the presence of the Lord. Nothing can touch our joy. Oh, let us commit ourselves to the Lord.
Lord, we thank You for sharing Your joy with us.
We want to worship You together. If there are any things keeping us from being in Your presence, we pray that You would expose them in Your light right now.
We want to come to Your face, even if it shows the truth in our inward parts, even if You show all our motives and all our own things. We dare not be away from You.
Lord, You are our joy. You are everything.
We come and willingly choose to rejoice in You—not to take joy in anything else, but to rejoice in You. We appreciate all of Your love and care toward us, Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen.