Citizens of God's Kingdom: Work With Joy
There is a definite break in Philippians chapter 3. Some people believe Paul originally intended to end the letter here in 3:1 when news reached him of problems in Philippi and so he wrote the rest of chapter 3 and 4 in answer to that news. Whether that's true or not, it does seem that 3:1 does act as a conclusion to one section of the letter, a final exhortation to these people who were working as citizens of God's kingdom, bound together in the fellowship of the gospel. “Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe.” It's not entirely clear (to me, at least) whether Paul's comment about writing the same things over and over refers to the first part of verse 1 “rejoice in the Lord” or to the verses that come after, which deal with salvation by faith, a theme Paul definitely wrote about often. But if it refers to 3:1 it is rather interesting, given that in the next chapter, Paul would write again in 4:4: “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.” Paul was willing to say this idea over and over again in order to drive his point home.
And that's interesting if you consider this position for a moment. Paul was in prison, awaiting trial, a trial which might possibly lead to his own death. He was writing to a church which was experiencing at least some persecution. Neither of those situations immediately suggest the idea of rejoicing. And yet Paul rejoiced and commanded those to whom he wrote to rejoice.
The first thing we see is that this rejoicing is not dependent on circumstances. There are certain situations which naturally making us happy, which make us joyful. And that's fine. But it doesn't mean that we have to be unhappy in bad circumstances. I already mentioned the dark situation out of which Paul wrote Philippians, a book which overflows with words of joy and thanksgiving. And there are other examples in the Bible--for instance, we have one prayer of thanksgiving which was prayed from one the darkest and unlikely situations imaginable, the internal organs of a large marine animal: “They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.” (Jonah 2:8-9) The whole spirit of this kind of joy was captured by Habakkuk: "Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation." (Habakkuk 3:17-18)
We can rejoice and be thankful, even when things are not going well. But that does not mean that we do not have sorrow about the bad things in life. In a previous article, we looked at Epaphroditus and his sickness and noted Paul's feelings regarding his sickness. In the midst of a book filled with rejoicing, Paul admits that he was in sorrow for his difficult situation and would have felt more sorrow if Epaphroditus had died while ministering to him. The joy which Paul had and which he was exhorting the Philippians to have was not inconsistent with having sorrow and grief.
The second thing to notice about this joy is that it is intentional. Paul exhorts, even commands them: “Rejoice in the Lord.” He does not merely observe, “Oh, by the way, you are very joyful, aren't you?” He does not say, “If you were truly Christians, you would already have joy and so if you don't, you must be hypocrites.” This joy is not an automatic thing that happens simply because we are Christians--it is a choice. It is not, therefore, in the most basic sense, an emotion. We cannot choose our emotions. They arise naturally based on various causes--mental, spiritual, and physical. The joy that Paul is speaking of is something more: it is a choice--you might say, it is a lifestyle.
We can understand this if we think of the holiday of Thanksgiving. We may or may not feel thankful to God. But we can choose to give thanks. And it is by giving thanks that we may become thankful. That is why we set apart one day in the year to give thanks to God, why we make every effort to mark it out as a special and a joyful time by tradition and by festivity. Throughout Scripture, we are constantly told to remember, to do things for remembrance, to remind ourselves of what God has done. It is human nature to forget, which is why we have to take an effort to remember what God has done for us. I mentioned early about Jonah and how in the belly of the whale he prayed to God, recognizing his dependence on God, and promising to offer a sacrifice with a voice of thanksgiving. That's in Jonah 2. If you turn over to Jonah 4, you will find Jonah sitting on a hillside, griping and grumbling to God. The truth is, as humans, we are very prone to forget what God has done for us. That is why we must take time, consciously and deliberately, to rejoice in the Lord, why Paul said this again and again in Philippians.
Last year, I remember hearing a preacher give several sermons built around the question: “Why are so many Christian's unhappy?” I believe we have part of the answer to that here. I believe many Christians are unhappy because they never rejoice--because they never make this conscious decision to seek for and embrace the joy which is their right. Instead, they sit back, cross their arms, and defy God to make them happy. I submit to you that it doesn't work that way. Unless we have an attitude of gratitude and thanksgiving, we will never receive the gift of joy God has for us. If you want a letter, you have to go to the mailbox. If you want to receive something, you have to open your hands. If you want to get wet, you have to get into the water. God is not going to ram His joy down our throats against our will. I don't say that we can make ourselves happy by our own efforts. As Paul says earlier in Philippians, in all of our Christian lives there are two sides, our own working and God work in us. We need both. We must build the altar, but it is God who sends the fire. That is why we must have an attitude, a lifestyle of joy--a conscious choice to believe in and seek after the joy which God has promised us.
The third thing to note is that Paul does not merely say “Rejoice” but “rejoice in the Lord.” The joy we have as Christians is the joy of the Lord, in 1:25 Paul calls it the “joy of faith.” It is not merely joy as such, not merely a natural cheerfulness or happiness. It is a joy in knowing and believe God and living our lives for his sake. William Barclay writes: “There is a certain indestructibility in Christian joy; and it is so, because Christian joy is in the Lord. Its basis is that the Christian lives for ever in the presence of Jesus Christ. He can lose all things, and he can lose all people, but he can never lose Christ. And, therefore, even in circumstances where joy would seem to be impossible and there seem to be nothing but pain and discomfort, Christian joy remains, because not all the threats and terrors and discomforts of life can separate the Christian from the love of God in Christ Jesus his Lord (Romans 8:35-39).” (The Letter to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians: Revised Edition, 51)
As Christians, we know God, which is a constant reason for joy. We have joy because of what God has done for us. We also have because of what we know God is going to do for us. As Paul will say later in Philippians: “Be careful [anxious] for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” (Philippians 4:6) We go to God in prayer with thanksgiving because of what God has done and that gives us confidence for what God is going to do. We have joy to see God's work going forward. (We saw this before in chapter 1--Paul rejoiced to see the gospel spreading, even if the work was being done by his enemies.) We rejoice to see other Christians following God. Several times in this epistle Paul speaks of the joy he had in seeing the Philippians following God and he also exhorted them to continue following God to fulfill his joy. His testimony would have been the same as St. John in 3 John 4: “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.” And finally and fundamentally, we have joy in God. God is the only true source of joy and all other joy comes from him indirectly. Jean Sophia Pigott wrote: “Jesus, I am resting, resting/In the joy of what Thou art;/I am finding out the greatness/Of Thy loving heart... Oh, how great Thy loving-kindness,/Vaster, broader than the sea!/Oh, how marvelous Thy goodness,/Lavished all on me!... Simply trusting Thee, Lord Jesus,/I behold Thee as Thou art,/And Thy love, so pure, so changeless,/Satisfies my heart.” (Wesleyan Heritage Hymnal, #204)
I quoted Barclay as saying that “there is a certain indestructibility in Christian joy.” I believe the other side of that is that, as Christians, we must also have a certain loyalty to joy. We may not always feel joyful; we may not always feel thankful, but if we believe in God, we know that there is always cause for joy, there is always cause for Thanksgiving. Almost every day I hear people say things like, “There's nothing to be happy about.” As Christians, we know that isn't true. To feel depressed and despondent is only human; but to accept them, to embrace them is disloyalty. Whether we feel joyful or not, we know that joy is real and it is our portion as Christians. One chorus put it; “I live upon the mountain top, but sometimes I'm not at home.” As we live in this world of change and sorrow, we may not always see joy, but we know it is still there. That is why we must make the conscious, deliberate choice that Paul made and which he encouraged the Philippians to make--the choice to “rejoice in the Lord.”
And that's interesting if you consider this position for a moment. Paul was in prison, awaiting trial, a trial which might possibly lead to his own death. He was writing to a church which was experiencing at least some persecution. Neither of those situations immediately suggest the idea of rejoicing. And yet Paul rejoiced and commanded those to whom he wrote to rejoice.
The first thing we see is that this rejoicing is not dependent on circumstances. There are certain situations which naturally making us happy, which make us joyful. And that's fine. But it doesn't mean that we have to be unhappy in bad circumstances. I already mentioned the dark situation out of which Paul wrote Philippians, a book which overflows with words of joy and thanksgiving. And there are other examples in the Bible--for instance, we have one prayer of thanksgiving which was prayed from one the darkest and unlikely situations imaginable, the internal organs of a large marine animal: “They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.” (Jonah 2:8-9) The whole spirit of this kind of joy was captured by Habakkuk: "Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation." (Habakkuk 3:17-18)
We can rejoice and be thankful, even when things are not going well. But that does not mean that we do not have sorrow about the bad things in life. In a previous article, we looked at Epaphroditus and his sickness and noted Paul's feelings regarding his sickness. In the midst of a book filled with rejoicing, Paul admits that he was in sorrow for his difficult situation and would have felt more sorrow if Epaphroditus had died while ministering to him. The joy which Paul had and which he was exhorting the Philippians to have was not inconsistent with having sorrow and grief.
The second thing to notice about this joy is that it is intentional. Paul exhorts, even commands them: “Rejoice in the Lord.” He does not merely observe, “Oh, by the way, you are very joyful, aren't you?” He does not say, “If you were truly Christians, you would already have joy and so if you don't, you must be hypocrites.” This joy is not an automatic thing that happens simply because we are Christians--it is a choice. It is not, therefore, in the most basic sense, an emotion. We cannot choose our emotions. They arise naturally based on various causes--mental, spiritual, and physical. The joy that Paul is speaking of is something more: it is a choice--you might say, it is a lifestyle.
We can understand this if we think of the holiday of Thanksgiving. We may or may not feel thankful to God. But we can choose to give thanks. And it is by giving thanks that we may become thankful. That is why we set apart one day in the year to give thanks to God, why we make every effort to mark it out as a special and a joyful time by tradition and by festivity. Throughout Scripture, we are constantly told to remember, to do things for remembrance, to remind ourselves of what God has done. It is human nature to forget, which is why we have to take an effort to remember what God has done for us. I mentioned early about Jonah and how in the belly of the whale he prayed to God, recognizing his dependence on God, and promising to offer a sacrifice with a voice of thanksgiving. That's in Jonah 2. If you turn over to Jonah 4, you will find Jonah sitting on a hillside, griping and grumbling to God. The truth is, as humans, we are very prone to forget what God has done for us. That is why we must take time, consciously and deliberately, to rejoice in the Lord, why Paul said this again and again in Philippians.
Last year, I remember hearing a preacher give several sermons built around the question: “Why are so many Christian's unhappy?” I believe we have part of the answer to that here. I believe many Christians are unhappy because they never rejoice--because they never make this conscious decision to seek for and embrace the joy which is their right. Instead, they sit back, cross their arms, and defy God to make them happy. I submit to you that it doesn't work that way. Unless we have an attitude of gratitude and thanksgiving, we will never receive the gift of joy God has for us. If you want a letter, you have to go to the mailbox. If you want to receive something, you have to open your hands. If you want to get wet, you have to get into the water. God is not going to ram His joy down our throats against our will. I don't say that we can make ourselves happy by our own efforts. As Paul says earlier in Philippians, in all of our Christian lives there are two sides, our own working and God work in us. We need both. We must build the altar, but it is God who sends the fire. That is why we must have an attitude, a lifestyle of joy--a conscious choice to believe in and seek after the joy which God has promised us.
The third thing to note is that Paul does not merely say “Rejoice” but “rejoice in the Lord.” The joy we have as Christians is the joy of the Lord, in 1:25 Paul calls it the “joy of faith.” It is not merely joy as such, not merely a natural cheerfulness or happiness. It is a joy in knowing and believe God and living our lives for his sake. William Barclay writes: “There is a certain indestructibility in Christian joy; and it is so, because Christian joy is in the Lord. Its basis is that the Christian lives for ever in the presence of Jesus Christ. He can lose all things, and he can lose all people, but he can never lose Christ. And, therefore, even in circumstances where joy would seem to be impossible and there seem to be nothing but pain and discomfort, Christian joy remains, because not all the threats and terrors and discomforts of life can separate the Christian from the love of God in Christ Jesus his Lord (Romans 8:35-39).” (The Letter to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians: Revised Edition, 51)
As Christians, we know God, which is a constant reason for joy. We have joy because of what God has done for us. We also have because of what we know God is going to do for us. As Paul will say later in Philippians: “Be careful [anxious] for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” (Philippians 4:6) We go to God in prayer with thanksgiving because of what God has done and that gives us confidence for what God is going to do. We have joy to see God's work going forward. (We saw this before in chapter 1--Paul rejoiced to see the gospel spreading, even if the work was being done by his enemies.) We rejoice to see other Christians following God. Several times in this epistle Paul speaks of the joy he had in seeing the Philippians following God and he also exhorted them to continue following God to fulfill his joy. His testimony would have been the same as St. John in 3 John 4: “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.” And finally and fundamentally, we have joy in God. God is the only true source of joy and all other joy comes from him indirectly. Jean Sophia Pigott wrote: “Jesus, I am resting, resting/In the joy of what Thou art;/I am finding out the greatness/Of Thy loving heart... Oh, how great Thy loving-kindness,/Vaster, broader than the sea!/Oh, how marvelous Thy goodness,/Lavished all on me!... Simply trusting Thee, Lord Jesus,/I behold Thee as Thou art,/And Thy love, so pure, so changeless,/Satisfies my heart.” (Wesleyan Heritage Hymnal, #204)
I quoted Barclay as saying that “there is a certain indestructibility in Christian joy.” I believe the other side of that is that, as Christians, we must also have a certain loyalty to joy. We may not always feel joyful; we may not always feel thankful, but if we believe in God, we know that there is always cause for joy, there is always cause for Thanksgiving. Almost every day I hear people say things like, “There's nothing to be happy about.” As Christians, we know that isn't true. To feel depressed and despondent is only human; but to accept them, to embrace them is disloyalty. Whether we feel joyful or not, we know that joy is real and it is our portion as Christians. One chorus put it; “I live upon the mountain top, but sometimes I'm not at home.” As we live in this world of change and sorrow, we may not always see joy, but we know it is still there. That is why we must make the conscious, deliberate choice that Paul made and which he encouraged the Philippians to make--the choice to “rejoice in the Lord.”
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