REJOICE IN THE LORD ALWAYS

Mike Cunningham

September 21, 2014

It reminded me of just how saturated our world is with sin. Along with most Americans, I was completely unaware that another evil had arrived on the scene of human history. I can only imagine the horrible thoughts that raced through the minds of its victims. The possibility of those satanically crazed murderers infiltrating our country is terrifying. It’s unnecessary to describe the video footage. Unless you are blind or seriously visually impaired, you saw each man moments before a member of ISIS beheaded him. If the victims were given the opportunity to write a few letters to their loved ones back home what do you think would be the first thing they would say? Here’s what one of my favorite hero’s told the folks that he loved dearly to do when he was in a similar situation. He said:

Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice! Philippians 4:4

Commentating on this verse, Alexander Maclaren says that: ‘It has been well said that this whole epistle may be summed up in two short sentences: “I rejoice and Rejoice ye. The word and the thing crop up in every chapter, like some hidden brook sparkling out into the sunshine from beneath the shadows. This continual refrain of gladness is all the more remarkable if we remember the Apostles circumstances. The letter shows him as a prisoner, dependent on Christian charity for a living, having no like-minded man to cheer his solitude; uncertain as to ‘how it shall be with me,’ and obliged to contemplate the possibility of being ‘offered,’ or poured out as a libation, ‘on the sacrifice and service of your faith.’Yet out of all the darkness his clear notes ring jubilant; and this sunny epistle comes from the pen of a prisoner who did not know if he might die by being beheaded the next day.

The exhortation with its urgent reiteration once again picks up a dropped thread that the Apostle had first introduced in the beginning of the previous chapter. He had evidently been intending to close his letter because he says: ‘Finally my brothers, rejoice in the Lord,” but he is drawn away into that precious personal digression in which he speaks of his continual aspiration and effort toward things that have not yet been attained. Now he comes back again and picks up the thread once again, together with his parting councils.

The reiteration becomes even more impressive if we remember hat it’s a repetition of what he said previously. “Rejoice in the Lord always”, and then he seems to hear one of his Philippian readers saying: “Why! You already told us that!”“Yes, he says, and you shall hear it once again; that’s how important my commandment is so I’m going to repeat it a third time. So I say it again, “Rejoice.

Christian gladness is an important element in Christian duty; and the difficulty and necessity of it are indicated by the urgent repetition of the injunction.

So then, the first thought that suggests itself to me from these words is that close union with Jesus Christ is the foundation of real gladness.

Notice that ‘the Lord’ here, as is usually the case in Paul’s Epistles, doesn’t mean God the Father but Jesus Christ. Then observe that the phrase ‘Rejoice in the Lord’ has a deeper meaning than we sometimes attach to it. For instance, we’re accustomed to speak of rejoicing in a thing or in a person, which is represented as being the occasion or the object of our gladness. Although it is true in reference to our Lord, it isn’t the whole depth of the Apostle’s meaning here.He is employing the phrase, ‘in the Lord,’ in the profound and comprehensive sense in which it generally appears in his letters, and especially in those in this Epistle to the Philippians. Without quoting passages, I refer you to the continual use of the phrase in his letter to the Ephesians in which you will find that ‘in Christ Jesus is the signature stamped upon all the gifts of God, and upon all the blessings of the Christian life. ‘In Him’ we have the inheritance; ‘in Him’ we obtain redemption through His blood, including the forgiveness of our sins; ‘In Him we are blessed with all spiritual blessings.’ And the deepest description of the most essential characteristic of a Christian life, is to Paul that of a life in Christ.

It’s this close union which the Apostle indicates as being the foundation and the source of all that gladness that he desires to see spreading its light over the Christian life. ‘Rejoice in the Lord’ and by being in Him be glad.

That great thought has two aspects. One is deep and mysterious and the other one is plain and practical. I need not spend much time on the former. We Christians believe in the superhuman character and nature of Jesus Christ. We believe in His divinity. Therefore we can believe in the possibility of a union between Him and us which transforms all the forms of human association, and being really like that which the creature holds to its Creator in regards to his or her physical being.‘In Him we live and move and have our being’ is the very foundation truth in regard to the relation of the constitution of the universe. ‘In Him we live and move and have our being’ is the very foundation truth in regard to the relation of the Christian soul to Jesus Christ. All earthly unions are far from that deep, transcendent, mysterious, and real union, by which the Christian soul is in Christ, just as the branch is in the vine, the member is in the body, the planet in its atmosphere, and by which Christ is in the Christian soul as the life sap is in every twig, as the mysterious vital power is in every member. Abiding in Him in a manner that admits of no parallel or of any doubt we may and shall be glad.

Then passing from the mysterious we come to the plain. To be ‘in Christ’ is the basis of all true blessedness. This means that our entire nature shall be occupied with and fastened upon Him; by way of turning to Him, with the tendrils of our heart clinging and creeping around Him, with the will submitting itself in glad obedience to His beloved and supreme commandments, the aspirations and desires feeling out after Him as the sufficient and eternal good, and all the current of our being setting towards Him in earnestness of desire, and resting in Him in tranquility. May you and I ‘be in Christ.’

Then Paul says, in the great words of my text, such a union, reciprocal and close, is the secret of all blessedness. If we are wedded to the Lord, and His life is in us and ours is enclosed in Him, then there is a correspondence between our necessities and our supplies because there isn’t any room for arching emptiness; no gnawing of unsatisfied longings, but the blessedness that comes from having found that which we seek, and in finding it being stimulated to an even greater, happier, and not restless search. The man who knows where to get anything and everything that he needs, and to whom desires are but the prophets of an instantaneous fruition; that man surely has in his possession the secret of perpetual gladness. Those who dwell in Christ, by faith, love, obedience, imitation, aspiration, and enjoyment, are like men housed in some fortress; men who can look out over all the fields that are full with their enemies, and feel that they are safe. (1)

Paul says that we are to, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always.’ That’s a hard nut to crack. I can imagine a man asking, ‘What’s the use of giving me exhortations such as these?’ My gladness is largely a matter of temperament, and I can’t control my moods. My gladness is largely a matter of circumstances and I can’t determine them. When my heart is bleeding or beating like a sledgehammer it’s ridiculous to tell me to be glad!

Of course, temperament has a great deal to do with joy; and circumstances also have a great deal to do with it, but the mission of the Gospel is to make us masters of our temperament and independent of our circumstances. Isn’t the possibility of living a life that has no dependence upon externals, and that may persist permanently through various moods the very gift that Christ came to bestow on us-bringing us into communion with Himself, thereby making us lords of our own inward nature and of externals: so that ‘though the fig tree shall not blossom, and there is no fruit on the vine,’ we may still ‘rejoice in the Lord and be glad of our salvation.(2)

As I have said, the urgency of the command indicates both its importance and its difficulty. It’s important that professing Christians should be glad Christians (with the joy that is drawn from Jesus Christ) because in doing so they become walking advertisements and living witnesses for Him. A gloomy melancholy, professing Christian is a poor recommendation of his faith. ‘If you want to adorn the doctrine of Christ’ you will do it a great deal more by a bright face that speaks of a calm heart, calm because it’s filled with Christ than by many more ambitious efforts. This gladness is important because without it there will be little good work done and little progress made. It’s surely important for us because we should be able to have traveling with us through the desert that mystical rock that follows with its streams of water and provides us with all the joys that we need.

The difficulty as well as the importance of the obligation, is expressed by the stringent repetition of the command, ‘And again I say, Rejoice.’ When objections arise, when difficulties present themselves, I repeat the command again, in the teeth of all of them; and I know what I mean when I’m saying it. Through Paul, we need to make a definite effort to keep ourselves in touch with Jesus Christ, or else gladness and a great deal besides, will fade away from our grasp. (3)

4:4-5 Rejoice in the Lord at all times. I will say it again—Rejoice! Let your gracious gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is near.

Commenting on these verses, William Barclay says that, “Paul sets before the Philippians two great qualities of the Christian life.

The first is the quality of joy. “Rejoice…I will say it again—Rejoice!” It is as if having said, “Rejoice!” A picture of all that was to come flashed into his mind. There he was lying in prison with almost certain death awaiting him; the Philippians were setting out on the Christian way, and dark days, dangers and persecutions inevitably lay ahead. So Paul says, “I know what I’m saying. I’ve thought of everything that can possibly happen. And still I say it—Rejoice!”

Christian joy is independent of all things on earth because it has its source in the continual presence of Christ. Two lovers are always happy when they are together, no matter where they are. The Christian can never lose his joy because he can never lose Christ.

Paul goes on, as the King James Version has it: “Let your moderation be known to all men.” The word epieikeia, translated moderation is one of the most untranslatable of all Greek words. The difficulty can be seen by the number of translations that have been given to it. Wycliffe translates it patience; Tyndale, softness; Crammer, softness; The Geneva Bible, the patient mind; the Rheims Bible, modesty; the English Revised Version, forbearance (in the margin gentleness); Moffatt, forbearance; Weymouth, the forbearing spirit; the New English Bible, magnanimity. C. Kingsley Williams has: “Let all the world know that you will meet a man half-way.”

The Greeks explained this word as “justice and something better than justice.” They said that epieikeia ought to come in when strict justice became unjust because of its generality. There may be individual instances where a perfectly just law becomes unjust or where justice is not the same thing as equity. A man has the quality of epieikeia if he knows when not to apply the strict letter of the law, when to relax justice and introduce mercy.

Let’s take a simple example that meets every teacher almost every day. Here are two students. We correct their examination papers. We apply justice and find that one has eighty per cent and the other fifty per cent. But we go a little further and find that the man who got eighty per cent has been able to do his work in ideal conditions with books, leisure and peace to study, while the man who got fifty per cent is from a poor home and has inadequate equipment, or has been ill, or has recently come through some time of sorrow or strain. In justice this man deserves fifty per cent and no more; but epieikeia will value his paper far higher than that.

Epieikeia is the quality of the man who knows that regulations are not the last word and knows when not to apply the letter of the law.

The Christian, as Paul sees it, is the man who knows that there is something beyond justice. When the woman taken in adultery was brought before him, Jesus could have applied the letter of the Law according to which she should have been stoned to death; but he went beyond justice. As far as justice goes, there is not one of us who deserves anything other than the condemnation of God, but he goes far beyond justice. Paul lays it down that the mark of a Christian in his personal relationships with his fellow-men must be that he knows when to insist on justice and when to remember that there is something beyond justice.

Why should a man be like this? Why should he have this joy and gracious gentleness in his life? Because, says Paul, the Lord is at hand. If we remember the coming triumph of Christ, we can never lose our hope and our joy. If we remember that life is short, we will not wish to enforce the stern justice that so often divides men but will wish to deal with men in love, as we hope that God will deal with us. Justice is human, but epieikeia is divine. (3)

A modern day commentator, William Hendriksen says that, “Once again, as so often before, the apostle stresses the duty of rejoicing. He says, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say Rejoice. The exhortation is repeated, probably because on the surface it seems so unreasonable to rejoice in obedience to a command, and perhaps even more unreasonable to rejoice always, under all circumstances no matter how trying. Can one truly rejoice when the memory of past sins vexes the soul, when dear ones are suffering, when one is being persecuted, facing possible death? But there is Paul, who does, indeed remember his past sins (Philippians 3:6; cf. Galatians 1:13; 1 Corinthians: 15:9), whose friends are really suffering (Philippians 1:29-30), who is even now a prisoner facing possible death; yet, who rejoices and tells others to do likewise! It is evident from this that circumstances alone do not determine the condition of heart and mind. A Christian can be joyful within when without all is dark and dreary. He rejoices in the Lord, that is, because of his oneness with Christ, the fruit of whose Spirit is joy (Galatians 5:22). This is reasonable, for in and through Christ all things-also those that seem most unfavorable-work together for good (Romans 8:28).

It was not unreasonable for Paul to exhort the Philippians to rejoice, for the disposition of joy can be and should be cultivated. This can be done, as the apostle indicates in the context (see verse 8), by meditating on the proper subjects, that is, by taking account of the things that should stand out in our consciousness. For Paul, such reasons for joy, the joy unspeakable and full of glory, were the following; that he was a saved individual whose purpose was in his entire person to magnify Christ (1:19, 20): that this Savior, in whose cross, crown, and coming again he glories (2:5-11; 3:20-21; 4:5), was able and willing to supply his every need (4:11-14, 19,20); that others, too, were being saved (1:6; 2:17,18), the apostle himself was being used by God for this glorious purpose; that he had many friends and helpers in the gospel-cause, who together formed a glorious fellowship in the Lord (1:5; 2:19-30; 4:1, 10); that God was causing all things, even bonds, to work together for good (1:12-18; cf. Romans 8:28) so that even death is gain when life is Christ (1:21, 23); and that at all times he has freedom of access to the throne of grace (4:6). Let the Philippians meditate on these things and rejoice, yes rejoice always. (4)

And from the bottom of my heart I hope that you and I will do the same!

Lord willing, next week….

• Exposition of the Holy Scriptures by Alexander Maclaren. Philippians, Colossians, First and Second Thessalonians, and First Timothy, reprinted 1984 by Baker Book House Company. Pages 21-25.
• Page 26
• Page 30
• The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians by William Hendrickson. Published by Westminster Press, Louisville, Ky. 04202, pages 74-76.