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Unto him who?
Is forever.
Familiar portion. It's often been taken up but occasions like this, but perhaps again for our encouragement in the book of Philippians.
Philippians, Chapter 3.
Three.
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.
Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision, for we are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.
Though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he hath, whereof he might trust in the flesh I more.
Circumcised the 8th day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, and Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal, persecuting the Church, touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless. But what things were gained to me? Those I counted loss for Christ, Yeah, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.
For whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but down, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ.
The righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Not as though I had already attained either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended but this one thing I do for getting those things which are behind, and reaching forth under those things which are before I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect be thus minded, and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
Nevertheless, where do we have already attained? Let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an example for many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you, even weeping. They are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, whose glory is in their shame.
Who mind earthly things?
For our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like under His glorious body, according to the working, whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.
Well, as I say, this is a portion we've often taken up on occasions like this. But you know, at the beginning of this chapter, Paul said it wasn't brief with her. Earned some for him to write the same things to the Philippians.
00:05:09
And so often to go over the same things, brethren, same chapters, same line of truth is what we need. And it's our hearts for Special Situations, a special time before we embark on this chapter. As we know, the book of Philippians is the book of joy. But you know, I've enjoyed 4 keys to this book in each of these chapters. It's often been said, and rightly so, that you don't have to read very far in the Word of God.
To realize that the subject is always Christ. In the Old Testament it's the pictures and the illustrations and the foreshadows and types and so on. In the Gospels, it's the life of Christ. In the Epistles we have Christ brought before us in connection with Christianity and where he is now. Later on in Revelation you have prophetic events and the full exaltation of Christ here in this world, and so on. But the subject is always Christ.
But I want to just go back for a moment and notice a verse in each one of these chapters that brings before us the special and unique way in which the apostle Paul, directed by the Spirit of God, brings out Christ in these four different chapters. Just say two to young people, but to all of us that it's helpful when you open to a book, a chapter, or a portion to try to 0 in on a key verse or phrase.
That which will unlock or open to you the book, the chapter, or the portion and God has those little keys that are very helpful. These 4 verses I'm going to give you are keys to these four chapters and to the outline of the book of Philippians. In chapter one, the apostle says in verse 21, for me to live is Christ. In other words, in this first chapter we have Christ as the believer's life.
You know, the athlete says for me to live is sports. The musician says for me to live is music.
Or whatever it might be, but.
When Paul got saved a Saul of Tarsus, there was a complete turn around and his whole life was to live Christ. That was the whole exercise and desire of the apostle Paul. Is that your desire and mine to live Christ? For me to live is Christ. We won't develop these for the sake of time, but then go to the 5th, the 2nd chapter in the fifth verse he says let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
What we have in this chapter is Christ as the believers example. The reason I say that is because if we were to read the following verses, we would find in the context here they're given as an example for you and for me as we live in this world. I know we often read these verses on Lord's Day morning in regard to the Lord Jesus taking up the work of the cross and where He is now and so on.
And rightly so, but in their context, it's Christ set before us as the believers. Example. Just skip over to the 4th chapter for a moment.
And perhaps the key verse there is verse 13. I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me. Here we have Christ as the believer. Strength. Do we need strength to live for Christ to follow his example? All the power, all the resources, all the strength are there.
And so the apostle Paul said I can do all things, not just some things, but I can live the Christian life. I can do all things through Christ. It's Christ the believer's strength. But back in our chapter and we'll get to it, I trust. But verse 14 he says I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. In other words, in this chapter we have Christ as the believers object. And as we have already said in these meetings.
That is to be our object. Are we going to run with endurance the race that's set before us? Are we going to live the Christian life for God's glory? We've got to have the object before us and the object, the prize in the Christian life is Christ and glory. So Christ is brought before us in these four different ways. But overall, I just say that Philippians is the book of joy and brethren, joy in spite of circumstances. And if we can get a little taste of that joy and understanding of that joy again.
In these meetings, in spite of our circumstances, then, I think it's been worth our while to be here.
00:10:08
Lord put the chapter on my heart and I want to add a little more introduction.
Uh, to the give emphasis to the words Christ our object.
More than perhaps any other chapter in the whole of the word of God, we have that fact presented to us. And, uh, it's said over and over and over again in meetings like this, but sometimes it's hard to get it into a context that it has much practical day-to-day application to our life. And, uh, yet I, I would like to, hopefully we'll see that as we go through the chapter more, but what it brings out to us is.
The apostle Paul explains to us what it meant to him to have the Lord Jesus Christ as the object of his life, what it meant to him, and how it controlled how he lived his life. And so, as has already been said, something is going to control our lives, and what controls us is what controls our hearts. And this chapter brings before us things that would.
Draw our hearts to the Lord Jesus in such a way that we would be has already been used the words motivated to live exclusively for Himself as the object before the heart. And as it says in the very beginning, he says in the very first sentence of the chapter, rejoice in the Lord.
Very beginning of what it means to have the Lord Jesus.
Is the object of our our object is. Put it this way, what is it in your life that you find your joy in?
That's going to dictate to a large measure what the object of your life. And different people have found the joy of their lives, not always in a Christian way, but they found the joy of their life in this thing or that thing. And that has been formed the way in which they live their life, and they live it according to that which gives them.
We might say pleasure in some cases, but nonetheless that which in a general way gives them the joy that.
They live for, and here the apostle Paul was encouraging his brethren, as he says in the very first exhortation, Rejoice in the Lord, find in the Lord Jesus.
The joy. But I want to connect it because of the way he says it. Here it says rejoice.
In Jesus, no. Rejoice in Christ, no. There's a reason later which we hopefully will get to where it says Christ and as the object, why we say it that way, but it says here rejoice in the Lord. And that implies something very important if we're going to have Christ as the object of our life, and that is.
It starts with.
And acceptance of our relationship to Himself as Lord.
Do we find it a joy to be under his authority? Paul says. Find it a joy to be under his authority as one that has the right of control in the life. As long as we resist that, we will not find Christ the object of our lives. We will choose something else in which we perhaps have the control.
Or the authority of choice, if I want the scripture would teach me if money is going to be the object of my life, Scripture says I'll go all the way to murder to get that which is my object. I'll let nothing stand in the way of it. And so just in very simple but important way, the beginning of this chapter is rejoice in who the Lord.
And that's the first, you might say, point that we have to come to if we're going to find Christ, the object of our lives.
00:15:13
Not only is it helpful to notice the context of Scripture, as we often say, but I found it helpful to my own soul to also notice the context in which God placed the writer to give moral weight and impact to what they wrote. And when the apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians and exhorted them to rejoice in the Lord, it had, I believe, moral weight because they could remember a time when he was in their very city.
In a very difficult circumstance, his back bleeding, his feet fast in the stalk with silence, and they rejoiced in the Lord at midnight, at the darkest hour, they prayed and sang praises. And so when Paul later wrote to them and told them to rejoice in the Lord, oh, they could say he knows what he, what he's talking about. Paul said to the Corinthians, sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Joy in the Lord doesn't mean that we don't feel the circumstances.
It doesn't mean that we don't shed tears. No, we do. And we never want to become indifferent or callous to our circumstances.
When Paul was in prison in Philippi, he felt, I'm sure, the cold damp floor of the prison, the weight of those shackles and his back bleeding. It wasn't a pleasant circumstance, but he found his joy not in blessings and not in things, but in a person. Notice it's not joy and blessings, joy and what we have in the Lord, but it's joy in in the Lord. But again, I think it's interesting to see when Paul wrote to the Philippians here.
He was again a prisoner. It wasn't just that he'd been a prisoner in their city, but he was again a prisoner. Now let's suppose that Solomon had written this Rejoice in the Lord back in the Old Testament, you'd say, well, of course Solomon didn't withhold himself from any pleasure. He had it all, naturally speaking, if he had written Rejoice in the Lord or something. So you'd say, oh, I could understand that. Now suppose Paul.
He was a prisoner of the Romans. He, he didn't have his freedom. But isn't it interesting? It's just the opposite. Solomon, who had everything of this world, Israel was at its pinnacle, humanly speaking. He had his throne of ivory and his ships and his Navy and the silver was counted for nothing. It was so plenteous, every pleasure, all his vanity and vexation of spirit.
Paul had nothing. He'd given up everything of this world. Rejoice in the Lord.
Because he had a permanent joy. He had the truest joy, the truest happiness that a person can have. An unbeliever can be happy when things go well. They got along at school, they got a good grade, they got their, they got a promotion at work. Everything was going well at home. Unbeliever can be, on the surface, happy, but only a believer has this true, deep joy.
Of which it says, Your joy no man taketh from you.
A lot of where?
Remembers, I'll say, as kids.
That mother dad said to us, don't do this, don't go there, etcetera. And we heard it many times and eventually we got maybe at times tired of hearing it. You told me that before. I know I'm not supposed to do this or that. And, uh, we, we get tired of the no side of it. Scripture warns us and does give us the no side of it and we need it. But I just wanted to know here in this first verse.
Paul's talking about something that preserves a soul, and it's the positive in this case. It's rejoiced in the Lord. And if we truly are finding our joy in the Lord Jesus, it will act as something that preserves. It says for you it's safe.
You know, if you are positively in the enjoyment of something that is good, then it is that which helps keep the mind in the right direction.
00:20:07
And it's also that which reduces the attraction of other things which are not good and which can be harmful for us. And it doesn't matter what the age is, it's true for all of us. And so Paul says here I'm going to warn you about some things. And he does in verse two, warn about, you might say some of the negative side of it, but he begins with the definite statement of that which is a preservative.
To us. And so it's not so much can I say this weekend that we learn one single thing that's new that we haven't heard before. But if our enjoyment of the Lord Jesus Christ personally is warmed up in us, it's been a good weekend and it has been a preservative weekend to our hearts to be occupied in that way with themselves.
Just go back to a little comment that Don made earlier, because I think it's important. And of course, as we've been saying, we have the Lord Jesus as the perfect example. But you find the Lord Jesus, we often refer to him in his pathway as the Man of Sorrows, and that's certainly true. But we find the Lord Jesus had a joy in his pathway as well. And what was that joy? Well, it goes back to what was said earlier.
It was the joy of doing the Father's will. And if you and I own the Lordship of Christ in our lives and seek to live in His will, there's going to be a joy. It doesn't mean it's going to be easy. We don't promise. Scripture never promises that the path of obedience, that owning the Lordship of Christ in our lives is going to be the easy path. But it and it doesn't. He doesn't promise there won't be tears, but it will always be the happy path.
And it's interesting with the Lord Jesus that there's one time, and I believe only once, that we read of the Lord Jesus actually rejoicing in his pathway. You can look it up. I think it's the 10th chapter of Luke. But it's on an occasion where he looked around on the cities he had come to bless and he had to pronounce judgment on those cities because of their rejection of him. And he felt it, and he felt it very keenly. But it's very interesting what it says. It says in that same hour.
At that very time Jesus rejoiced in spirit. You say, how could He do such a thing? Well, the very next verse or statement gives us the key. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in my sight, perfect submission to the will of God. His Father gave him a perfect joy even at a difficult time. And the Lord Jesus left several things with his disciples before he left, before he went back.
To heaven, one was his peace, but another was his joy. You know, you and I can walk through this world with the the joy, with the same joy that the Lord had. And that joy was a joy of being in the path of OB of faith and obedience. And of course, as we said earlier, He never digressed from it. And so there there was no interruption to his joy amidst the sorrows that he experienced. The difficulty for us is things come in.
There's not always that.
Focus on the Lord. There's not always that obedience, that owning the Lordship of Christ in our lives. Sometimes we get off the path of faith a little bit. So we lose that joy for a time, but we can walk through this world with the same joy. My joy, he said, calls it my joy and you and I can have that same joy. But I, I want again, I, I think what Don said, it's so good for us to get a hold of in our souls. That joy is only going to come, brother.
As we own His authority, His Lordship, and as we walk in the path of faith in the conscious sense of His presence with us.
Don't you think it's amazing, brethren, that we have to be reminded to have our joy in the Lord?
I I mean the things that are that follow you say, OK, I can understand, yes, we need to be reminded to be aware of certain things and to do and not do certain things. But do you and I have to remember, be reminded to rejoice in the Lord? Paul said, yeah, you know, in Philippi there was a little problem coming into the assembly. And in the next chapter he's going to delicately take up a little controversy, a little problem that was developing between two sisters.
00:25:11
You know, that was gonna spoil the the joy, their joy individually and the joy of the assembly collectively. Satan is so busy, brethren, to spoil our joy in the Lord individually, as families, as those gathered to the Lord's name collectively. He does not want us to have joy in the Lord. He doesn't want us to be a rejoicing, happy people. And he's gonna come in, in one way or another to seek to spoil that joy.
Paul says, I gotta tell you again, rejoice in the Lord, don't let something come in.
Amongst you that's going to spoil the joy of the Lord, individually or collectively.
And brethren, do we need to be told, reminded to rejoice in the Lord? I'm going to tell you again, rejoice in the Lord.
Is it grievous? Is it irks them to tell you again? Paul said, no, I'm gonna tell you again and again and again. And so we need to be reminded. And brother, there's so much that the enemy is allowing today to cast us down to spoil that joy again. We don't wanna be indifferent to it, but let's be reminded. Rejoice in the Lord. And how often are we to rejoice in the Lord? Well, in another portion in the spirit in the next chapter, he says.
Rejoice in the Lord always, just sometimes, just when things are going well. No, we need to rejoice in the Lord always. And then he says, and again I say, rejoice. Was that irksome to tell him again? That's about three or four times he's told them to rejoice in the lawyer. We said, I'm going to tell you again, brother, let's remind ourselves and let's remind one another as we go about together. The Lord leaves us here a little longer. Rejoice in the Lord.
People to find the thing they're passionate about and do that and you'll never work a day in your life. And, uh, there is, uh, some sense to that. If you have an occupation or something you really enjoy that work doesn't seem like work and the difficulty doesn't seem like difficulty where there's a real sense in which the joy of the Lord that we can enter into, no matter the circumstances, it's something that we can let go of. We can relax and, uh, get our eyes away from that, but it really, it's something that cannot be taken away.
By circumstances, we can be in whatever circumstance and enter into that and it changes things. We can feel, it's a cloudy, rainy day, a dark day, and then enter into there, this place, uh, the, uh, and enjoy the Lord and the joy of the Lord and it all fades away. And you can still be in the same circumstance. When you were talking about Paul and Silas being in prison, and I'm sure, very sure that there was some of the moment along the way where, like you said, they felt the, the damp ground and they certainly hurt from the wounds that they had.
And then there was a moment where they began to rejoice. And it's when the chains fell away too, you know, not until they begin to sing to the chains. They didn't fall away before they rejoice. And then they fell away. There's a real sense in which the the change is a metaphor in this life. And the things that that imprison us can fall away when we enter into that. So whatever circumstance, they can be in a literal prison like Paul and Silas. It can be in the darkest corner of the earth. It can be in a hospital bed, It can be wherever.
And someone can enter there and then all of that begins to fade away. And there's strength in that too, you know, just that simple entrance and enjoy this little communion that you have with the Lord Jesus and to look upon him with a fresh eyes again and just enter into that. And it, it, you're in another place. You know, they try to do all kinds of things in the world to encourage people to even meditate and imagine themselves in a, in a beautiful place when they're depressed and so on. Well, we have a very beautiful place to go.
And that's, you know, to, to have some communion in time and to really enjoy him and remind ourselves of the relationship that we have and what's been done for us, the price that's been paid. And, you know, the joy starts coming back and, uh, you, you have this moment, you know, we enter into those things in, uh, you know, relationships we have with husbands and wives and, uh, uh, where we have joy in one another's company. And, you know, and when I was driving up, uh, to the conference here, I was missing my wife and wishing she could be along and every, we, I saw some things. So I'd call her on the phone and, and, uh, feeling missing her. And then we had that little moment and talking on the phone and enjoyed that. Uh, there's a real sense in which whatever circumstance we're in.
00:30:04
We don't have to let go of that and it's it's us who let's go of it.
Connection with this uh, read Romans chapter 5.
And verse 11.
Romans chapter 5 and verse 11. And not only so, but we also joy in God.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the Atonement.
Because we're sinners by nature and by activity.
Natural men we had a point in which we feared God and.
The Old Testament gives us very many examples of people that were very afraid of God. And you might say, do you enjoy God? They'd say, of course I don't, I may enjoy some benefits. But God himself is fearful. And Moses, you talk to him, but you leave us out of it and you come back and tell us what he says.
But we don't wanna have anything directly to do with God. We might die. Uh, sadly.
The present era has lost the fear of God as they should have it and man mocks the very thoughts of God. It's only shows how far down he's gone but in the proper sense of the word and what was presented to the Romans, God was feared and.
Yet as it said here, we join God through our Lord Jesus Christ through the work that the Lord Jesus did to bring us into a suitable rela relationship with God to remove sin that separated us. Now through him we not only joy in our Lord Jesus. But it's been said this is the high point of this whole epistle of Romans is this one verse with joy in God also.
We can now find our pleasure in our hearts and in our thoughts and our joy in God. And to me more wonderful brethren, is to turn it around. Turn it around.
Before this world was ever created, the Lord Jesus Christ had His joy in you, set on you. He knew you by name. You were a gift of the Father to Him, and His heart became set on you before eternity. And He finds His joy in your happiness.
And your happiness with his Father God.
So the other side of it is God also finds his joy and his pleasure in us. His creature. The Lord Jesus is from eternity past, has found us the center of his own joy and the object of his own heart for God's glory.
So.
It we're encouraged to make it mutual.
When you love somebody and you find that they're happy, it's your happiness. And so when we joy in our God, when we joy in the Lord Jesus Christ, it becomes a way in which God himself finds a pleasure.
And He is doing a work with us that will eventually remove every single hindrance to the fullness of joy between us.
And we'll enjoy one another for eternity. And the Lord Jesus who did that work that would make this happen, he shall see of the fruit of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. He'll say it was worth everything that I went through in the work of redemption, that God now can rejoice in man, and man rejoice in God, and I can rejoice in the delight of my heart.
And they find their joy in me. So if I could put it another way, you're destined to find your joy in the Lord. Let's not wait. Let's get started and grow in it now.
00:35:01
12:43.
Verse 3.
Says they'll send out thy light and thy truth. Let them lead me, let them bring me unto thy holy hill, unto thy tabernacles. Then will I go on to the altar of God.
Unto God, my exceeding joy. Yeah, upon the heart will I praise thee, O God, my God.
Well, we see, see, it's Old Testament. Why art thou cast down on my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance.
And my God, David looks forward.
To for the psalmist whoever wrote it.
But God.
Noticed the new translation. Is God the gladness of my joy?
Beautiful, isn't it? OK.
Like the verse in Romans you brought out, I was thinking of John chapter 5 where the Lord Jesus.
He heals the man at the pool.
A Bethesda and the Jews.
And answered Jesus, and said unto them, Verily, verily, I sin to you. The Son can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do. For what thingsoever he doeth, these also doeth the Son. Likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that Himself doeth, And he will show him greater works than these, that you may marvel. For as the Father raises up the dead and quickeneth them, Even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.
When you think of this wondrous relationship, we you were mentioning brother Don the thing of.
Being Lord to each of our souls and this relationship of father and son is marvelous to see in, in, uh, John's gospel, particularly, I've noticed this relationship that I, I imagine times when I'm in sometimes a foreign country and you see someone sitting there begging and maybe they're blind, maybe they're crippled.
And the thought goes through my mind.
Oh, wouldn't it be wonderful?
The father was saying reach out and heal this person.
That happened between the father and the son, didn't it? There was the father's will was set forth.
And if that aspect of lordship.
He was completely subject man for the blessing of mankind. I was thinking of Acts Chapter 9 where we get solid Tarsus converted and we get the Lord.
So.
The lighting and turning him around, but in first.
Ten, it says, and there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias. And to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord.
You know when we follow this story.
We see him submitting to the Lord. We see him countering the Lord. I heard about this guy, Saul Tarsus. He's done some awful things.
But he's listening to his Lord, and he goes to him.
And he's not. He's fully trusting the Lord. He says there's.
12 verse 15 But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way, for he is a chosen vessel unto me.
To bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my namesake. And I went his way, entered into the house, putting his hands on him, said.
00:40:00
Didn't say I distrust this man. He had listened to his Lord, said brother Saul.
The Lord, even Jesus that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou minest received thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost. You know what a what an interesting this relationship, this conversation between the believer and his Lord, and I need to know more of that each of us need to know.
Something more of that relationship that.
Gives us the joy of seeing faith.
Between us at work.
Because God is still working today.
Somebody might say, well, what if I don't feel like that very much?
Do it anyway and it'll change you.
You know, it doesn't take long for a believer to begin to think about, well, what kinds of things can we rejoice in the Lord about? You might not even feel like it. You might be in circumstances where you don't. But if you begin to count them and begin to rejoice in those things that we've been brought into and the things that we have, it will change you. You know, Scripture says that will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on me. So in a very practical way, if you're not enjoying the Lord and you're not rejoicing in the Lord and and you want to be there.
May the 1St place is that fixing your mind upon him. And then peace comes and it's there that you can begin to rejoice and it changes you, Uh, and there's plenty to rejoice about. You know, one of the things that I think, uh, one of the reasons I think the Lord has the remembrance, uh, to be every week is that we need to be reminded of those things. We can get used to them. We can get where we don't see those things or enter into them like we should. But he had it so we'd be reminded, so that we would, uh, not forget. And, uh, in the, the grind of life sometimes in the daily circumstances, get our eyes taken away to be reminded of just how much.
Uh, was done for us and you know, Don goes all the way back before the foundation of the world. When you start thinking about those things, how can you not have your heart to change and how can you not begin to rejoice? But, uh, that's we can very practically do that kind of thing and pretty soon it changes us.
To the 119th sum for a verse in connection with what we've been saying and in connection with what took place in the 16th chapter of Acts, Psalm 119 and verse 62.
At midnight I will arise and give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous judgment. You know, I've often wondered when Paul and Silas were in prison, You know they didn't sing praises till midnight. I don't know what time of day they were thrown in there, but I suspect it was sometime before midnight. It might have been quite a while before, maybe not, maybe a short time, but at midnight they they sang, prayed and saying praises. And I've often wondered if they didn't have this verse brought to mind from the Old Testament.
At midnight I will arise and give thanks unto thee. Why?
Because of thy righteous judgments, they didn't, couldn't sing praises until they realized that what the Lord had allowed was right. And that's another thing that I think hinders our joy in the Lord. And that is so often we think, well, why did this happen to me and why did the Lord allow this and why this circumstance? And did I really deserve it? But I believe Paul and Silas came to a point in their life at midnight.
Where they realized that what God had allowed was right now. If I had been there, I don't know what I would have been doing.
Probably complaining and saying to myself, well, Lord, I I thought I got a vision to come over here and to help someone and to preach the gospel and what good am I doing with my back bleeding and my feet passed in the stalks and Lord, why did you allow this when I tried to be faithful, but that's not what they did. They realized that what he had allowed was right and realizing that they could sing praises. And what was the result why the jailkeeper got saved. They there was.
Joy in a prison, no doubt it was the beginnings of that little assembly that Paul later wrote to I I can just and I don't wanna read in the Scripture. Mine is that but can't you just picture the jailer sitting in the assembly and this letter arriving from the apostle Paul and a letter of joy and the the jailer having a smile on his face saying I know what Paul's talking about. I thought it had has moral weight with me. You don't have to convince me when Paul says.
00:45:11
Rejoice in the in the Lord. But the point is, brethren, our joy in the Lord.
Is often a testimony to others because, as we said earlier, the unbeliever can be happy on the surface, they can sing their light songs when things go well, but introduce something adverse and their happiness depends on circumstance. But a Christian who rejoices in the Lord and shows happiness in his life amidst adversity often is a great testimony. And I believe, and I've heard stories and.
No doubt you have too of people who have been turned to the Lord, people who've got saved, not because of something someone said or preaching or whatever, but because they saw a joy in a believer's life in a very adverse circumstance and they realize that that believer has someone and something that they don't have. And so if we have go about with that joy and brother, let your face show it.
Are you a believer? Yes, I know there's tears. I I understand that, and there's times to be sober and so on. But as we go about do our neighbors, our coworkers, our fellow students, those that pass us on the street, do they see something of the joy of the Lord radiating from us? If we are in the enjoyment of God the Father, in the enjoyment of the person of Christ, it's going to radiate from us in some way. We're not going to be able to help it.
When Moses was in the presence of the Lord, his face shone. It was just the unconscious reflection of being in the presence of God on the mouth. When the early disciples left the council after being beaten, why they rejoiced that they were able to suffer for Christ, and there was a real testimony and blessing as a result of it.
Success could say of his own life.
I delight to do thy will, Oh my God.
That is, the Lord Jesus found his joy in daily life in doing the will of another.
That is God's will.
And in doing it, we also see in his life that his will.
The Father's will was his will, and having a common will was a basis in which there was shared joy.
The difficulty we often get into that robs us of these things is God has one will in a matter and we have another, and because our wills in the matter are different then we can't find a common joy in the circumstance. We want it this way and God has chosen to do it that way and as a consequence we often don't find.
Find we, we lose.
That sense of oneness with God in something and it robs us consequentially of the joy. And so when it says rejoice in the Lord. I know it's been the whole meeting on that one point really, but the fact is that when we submit ourselves.
Wholeheartedly to the will of the Lord, we are changed to share in a common will, and having a common will brings the common joy.
But if the wills are opposed to each other, we can see it in natural things. We have, we'll say, a husband and wife and they have a child, and there's some decision that has to be made with respect to that child. And the husband sees it one way and the wife sees it another. And they don't have a common will or common mind in that matter. Is there joy in it? No, there's not. There's not. There's a struggle sometimes to see the matter the same, to be able to act in unity in it, that there might result in a.
Peace and a joy that comes from that oneness of mind and thought and, uh.
The practical side of it is, until we got saved, we never could find joy in God because our will was always different than God's will. But God by giving us eternal life and a divine nature, that nature in US can also it be said of it that it delights to do the will of God and the same things that God finds its joy in, that nature finds its joy in. And so it's by living out the life that God has given us.
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In contrast to verse two and beyond, which comes to the things of the old nature, Then we can, practically speaking, walk in that joy.
The man who ran in the Olympics and ran for Scotland, I remember how he said that he was his sister was concerned that he was getting too occupied with that and should be thinking more about going to the mission field in China. And he had a discussion with her where he said, you know, God may be fast.
And when I run, I feel his pleasure. The people used to ask him, he ran with an abandoned with the joy on his face. And he said, it's because I feel the pleasure of God and what I'm doing. And he felt that at the time that God had for a purpose for him that it uses, uh, gift in athletics to be able to preach Adolfo, which he did for a time. And then the testimony that of his life when he, uh, went to the illicit games and he stood up for what he believed. And later he, he died in China in mission fields. But I often think of that, that.
In a very real way when we run the race.
And according to his will, and in His will, we can feel his place.
35.
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