Rejoice In The Lord Always

Introduction

We’re going to begin our study in a few moments in the book of Philippians, chapter 4, if you’d like to be opening your Bibles to that place. And I’ll say just a few words at the beginning of our class time to say what a pleasure it is to be back in your midst. We know and love a great many people in this church, and we’re thrilled to have the opportunity to be with you again. I’ll reserve other comments till a little later so that we’ll use our time here as effectively as possible just to say thank God for the invitation and for the privilege of being in your midst again. In Philippians, the fourth chapter, let’s begin in verse one. Therefore, my beloved and longed-for brethren, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, beloved.

I implore Euodia and I implore Syntheci to be of the same mind in the Lord. I urge you also, true companion, help these women who labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. The Apostle Paul wrote this text in a situation that was far less than ideal. And yet he said to the Christians to whom he addressed this letter rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say, rejoice. So that’s the theme I want to talk with you about in our first hour together during this series. I think it’s an appropriate introduction to what we’ll talk about throughout the rest of the series, as I hope you will see the tie-in before we’re finished this morning.

1. Things That Have No Relationship to Happiness

I have recently read an article that was published in Psychological Science. It was published by David Myers and Ed Deaner in the January 1995 edition. The title of the article was Who is Happy? Had some most interesting things to say. It was a summarized article. These two men had collected over 100 articles that had been written and studies that have been done from which those articles came in the last few years. And the aim was to identify the traits and characteristics of those people whose lives appear to be happier and more fulfilled than the lives of others. Psychological science is where we found this. Before describing the characteristics of happy lives, they first outlined several things which were not related to happiness. So I thought that’s where I’d start this morning.

Based on these studies conducted worldwide, over a hundred studies summarized in this article, they said that happiness and life satisfaction were not associated with the following things. In other words, they didn’t find any significant difference between different groups of people in these categories based on happiness. Age. Aren’t you glad about that? Evidently, no one time in life was found to be happier than others, according to their studies. A second was sex, male and female. They didn’t find any significant differences there. Sometimes I hear folks talking about wishing they could be one or the other. Well, they didn’t find any significant differences there in terms of who is happy.

They really didn’t detect any significant differences between the races.

Now, on this last point, they did expand a little bit. They said the absence of financial resources can certainly create misery. But the presence of greater riches is no guarantee of happiness. They explained that once people are able to afford life’s necessities, increasing the levels of affluence has a surprisingly small impact on their fulfillment and happiness in life. Well, I think it’s interesting that psychologists, in their studies that they take of people, are able to come up with the same conclusions the Lord’s told us for a long time. The fact is there are an awful lot of things that people strive after that really have no relationship to happiness. What they did find in all of these studies, overwhelmingly, was that there was a very strong and impressive link between religion and fundamental health and happiness.

The psychologist explained that the greater happiness of religious people seems to be the result of enjoying more supportive and personal relationships, possessing a stronger sense of meaning and purpose in their lives, and having answers to life’s deepest questions, and appraising life’s events in a more optimistic way.

From the studies we have done, and we have studied what others have done, happiness ties very closely to finding something deeper in life than things.

2. Motion Makes No Sense Without a Frame of Reference

And again I say, rejoice. I think there’s a great key that I’d like for us to discuss this morning that ties to this subject. And I’d like to start by illustrating it this way. I was in a physics class back before the flood. At least that’s what my kids say. It was called PSSC physics. Most of you don’t even know what that’s talking about. And it really makes me feel older, Bob, when I think I’m telling things to audiences where a whole lot of the people in the audience don’t even know what I’m talking about. But there was a time, ladies and gentlemen, when our country decided we were so far behind the Russians, we better catch up. You remember 1957 what happened? The Russians sent up Sputnik.

That seems like so long ago. And our country became scared they were going to take over space. You remember? Some of you do. Please shake your head if you remember, it’ll make me feel better. Thank you. Well, what happened is they had a great movement among college and high school professors to change the curricula. And so in science, particularly, there were curriculum review committees. And they came out with these new studies, new ways of teaching science. And I happened to be involved in high school science right about that time, and so they introduced several of these new studies, and we were the guinea pigs.

I think a lot of the teachers didn’t understand it either. But I do have a vivid memory of that PSSC physics class because one of the things they did was they presented many different ideas in such a unique and interesting way. And one day we walked into class, and the teacher had totally darkened the room. And so as you walked in, you had to stand there a minute, let your eyes adjust so you could find your way to your seat. And then he had us all sit down. He didn’t call roll, we just started. Soon as the bell rang, he turned the movie projector on. And in that totally darkened room, as the projector showed the film on the screen, it was totally dark, a back, dark background, black.

And in front of that background were seated two gentlemen, one at the end of each table, or one at the end, each end of the table. And the man over here took a hold of a little object. Looked like a little hockey puck with a little handle on it, and he gave it a shove. And that thing just moved across the table like it was floating almost to the other side. And the other man touched it and it went back the other way. And so there you sat in a darkened room watching a little puck go across the table. That’s really interesting. And that’s all that was happening. There was no sound, nothing to see except that. And then as you watched there in silence, gradually the camera panned away from that scene.

And as you watched, behind that black background, you started seeing another background back behind it. And it was kind of like you know how it is when you’re sitting in your car at a stoplight and you start to think you’re moving? Because somebody else is moving. Well, it’s kind of like that as you sat there because that background back behind was moving.

And so as you watch that background moving and you watch that puck moving up front, it started to feel kind of crazy, like which way are we going here? And then as the camera came back farther from that, you realize that that original camera was stationed on an object that was big and round, that had this black background that had the other background behind it. And as you went to a separate camera back farther away, what you saw was that whole thing was moving around like this. Are you with me? The two guys at the table were sitting on a kind of like a turn table, and that whole thing was turning around like this. And so then the author of this movie comes on and speaks to you and says, which way was the puck moving?

And so you say it’s moving this way or this way. And no, when you see that whole scene, you’re not sure which way it’s moving because the fact is it’s going this way relative to something, it’s going that way relative to something else, and it’s going this way relative to something else. And I thought that was a most interesting way to introduce the concept that when you’re going to talk about motion in physics, motion makes no sense unless you tie it to something. And the whole theme of that movie was frames of reference, and so they went on to explain to you that motion has to have a frame of reference, so you cannot define it properly. Do you know you’re moving right now? I don’t mean you’re getting restless in your seat.

You are moving. In fact, I’m told you’re moving very rapidly right at this instant. You’re sitting on the surface of a very large object that’s doing this at a very rapid rate. And you’re moving right along with it. You know why you can’t detect that? Because your frame of reference isn’t far enough away. And so you don’t know you’re moving. But I’m sorry to tell you it’s worse than that. Not only are you doing this, you’re on a that same object is also moving this way around another very large object at a rather rapid rate. So you’re doing this, and you’re doing this, and you’re going around like that. And it’s worse than that. Because that whole system of which you’re a part is moving that way.

I believe it’s precisely what the Lord is telling us in His scriptures when He tells us to rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice. It has an awful lot to do with your frame of reference. And until we get our frame of reference right, we’re not going to understand what the Lord’s talking about. So let me start this notion by asking you to think with me a minute about happiness itself. I heard D. Bowman speak about this subject one time, and he always talks about where the words come from, kind of like my daddy. Most of you know my dad, and maybe you don’t know this. We’d sit at the dinner table in the evenings as a family, and he’d always bring up words.

3. Happiness Comes From Things External to Us

And if we didn’t know them, he’d make us go get the dictionary. And he’d make us read all that stuff about coming from the old English and the old French and the derivations of all those words. So that we’d have some concept of how language ties together. That’s one of my dad’s great strengths to this day. The word happiness comes from an old English word, which was a verb to happen. And so they used to say in old English, I happ to long. You ever heard that? I hapd along. That means I chanced to be in this place. Circumstances made it such that I was here. And the word happy is a direct derivation from that. And so, because of that, we think of that word in connection with things external to us, circumstances that surround us that bring about certain feelings.

And so I’d like to talk to you about a few in my life. Pardon the personal reference, and I’ll just ask you to plug in things in your life. And I have an idea some of you could speak much more eloquently than I about a whole lot of this, especially you older folks, even older than I. But there are just some events in my life where I look back upon those, and the external things surrounding me in those moments were just so wonderful. I think of a moment in 1953 when my dad came and got me and my sisters out of our beds and brought us into the bedroom where he and mother were and said, son, you have a new brother. Because my mother had given birth to a little boy in Holland while we lived there.

He was eight years younger than I, and I was the youngest up to that point. My sisters were older. So you can imagine how special that was to all of us.

At home.

And I can tell you that with old the with the rest of us children being older than he, he was kind of our baby. And I remember helping him in all kinds of ways, helping him learn to play ball. I remember how bouncy he was. He’d get in that crib and he’d start bouncing, and uh got to where he bounced so hard one time he bounced right out. But he was such a special little fellow to us, we called him Jimmy, James Paul. That’s one of those special moments. And some years later, I was privileged to be told by my wife, who I’m so glad to have here with me today, because she’s one of those special moments in my life in so many ways.

And she said, it’s time to go. Why do these things always happen at night? And when you’re preaching, why do they happen on Saturday nights? So we had to go to the hospital, and it was time for this baby to be born. And he too was several years younger than our other children. We had three already, you see, and we didn’t know it was going to be a he back in those days. You didn’t know what was going to be born. But when that doctor delivered that baby and told us it was a boy, and then he let us go off into the side room, and it was just Marilyn and me and our little Benjamin, and we spent about one hour just together cuddling and loving on that little boy.

I want to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, there aren’t many moments that are closer to just pure happiness than that. Because everything is just right, all the feelings are warm and wonderful. And it’s just a great thing. And it was especially great for me and for Maryland because we first didn’t think we were going to have any more children. He was our little accident. And second, we already had three of the other kind. Not anything against girls, but it was kind of nice to get a boy, too. So things were so special. And I tell you, I could go on about a whole host of events where things have just been, they all fell together just right. And I’m convinced God wants us to have as many of those kinds of moments as we possibly can in this old world.

Let me show you a couple of reasons I said that. In the ninth chapter of Ecclesiastes and verse 9, the writer says, Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life, which he’s given you under the sun, all the days of your vanity, for that is your portion in life and in the labor which you perform under the sun. You see that? Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life. I believe God wants us to have as many of those happy, precious moments as we possibly can. And could I throw in a little word to all you husbands? I’ll speak to myself at the same time. How long has it been since you provided for your wife and you one of those most special times where everything seems to be just right?

Where it’s just you and she and you’re sharing special times together and reminding yourselves how special you are to each other. If it’s been a long time since you did that, may I urge you and exhort you that it is your responsibility to let her know how special she is to you, and to raise that relationship to a level that God intends.

Make those moments. Don’t let time go by without them.

Have you ever experienced the joy, the sheer joy of just working hard at something, putting your heart into it? And when you get finished, you know you’ve done the best you can possibly do. That’s happiness, brothers and sisters. And God wants us to have lots of those moments.

In the 11th chapter of this book, verse 9, rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. You young people in this audience, you’re not going to be young long. You grab all the happiness you can in those days of your youth, remembering all the while God’s going to judge you. But get the most out of this life and the experiences that it has to offer. Enjoy as many of the holy, uplifting, wonderful things as this life has to offer. Because what I want to tell you, and I don’t have to tell the older folks this, if you thought of your life as a timeline, here’s your birth, and here’s your death.

4. The Moments Become Farther Apart

And you think of the early parts of your life and the moments in your life when things are just right. When everything’s warm and cozy and you just feel wonderful. We might could put little dots on here to represent those things. And maybe there are times when there are just a whole bunch of them all together. But I’ll tell you what you’ll learn, young people, if you haven’t started to see it already. These older folks can tell you that the farther your life progresses, the farther apart these times become where everything is just right in this life. Because things begin to happen that change the way you look at things in this life. So if I pointed right here to the moment when my brother Jimmy was born as one of those special moments when everything seemed to be, God was with us and everything was just right.

Then what do I do over here at this point in time, some 24 years later, when he died in an accident one Friday afternoon, just like that. And I can tell you, my life has not been the same. And my precious mother, from that point on till the day she died, was never the same. Those of you in this audience who’ve been through similar experience know exactly what I’m talking about. Because it doesn’t seem like after those times that any of these moments are just perfect anymore, just right, just so warm. Oh, they can be alright, but they’re not the same again. We age. And I can assure you there are people sitting in this audience right now who are hurting while they’re sitting there. Because our bodies are falling apart.

There are a lot of others who are hurting mentally because of things that have happened. And even though these circumstances where we’re privileged to gather together like this on the Lord’s Day, and what a wonderful blessing that is, and my, we don’t want to miss a one of those, do we? They’re not always just right and warm and fuzzy and everything’s wonderful. And so what do you do about that? And what do you do with what the apostle said in Philippians 4? Rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say, rejoice. And do you remember where the Apostle Paul was when he wrote those words?

Chapter 1 of Philippians tells us, verse 12, I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel so that it’s become evident to the whole palace and to all the rest that my chains are in Christ. You think the apostle Paul always had warm, fuzzy moments?

His life was filled with experiences of difficulties, trials, and tribulations, people hurting him.

5. The Lord’s Happiness Goes So Much Deeper

So the Lord’s happiness is not just the external events surrounding us are all just right. No, sir. It goes so much deeper than that. Turn with me to Romans 15. Where this same apostle writes to encourage Roman Christians. Those Christians were in the face of turmoil. And he said in verse 13 of Romans 15, now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

When faith, as God intends for it to be, becomes genuinely our own.

Entire existence to the one thing that matters. And as our faith deepens and strengthens, it doesn’t matter what happens externally to us. What matters is who we are and what our life is about. And that’s what keeps us going. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. And so the psalmist would say blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the congregation of the unrighteous. For his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he will be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth his fruit in his season.

His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he does shall prosper. He’s found his frame of reference, ladies and gentlemen. He’s like a tree planted by a river of water. He sinks his roots down. He’s found the source of what life is about. And because of that, he brings forth fruit, and his leaf doesn’t wither. And he knows the significance of his life, the law of the Lord becomes his frame of reference. I wish I could somehow get that message across to you young people. If you could early in life, find that there’s a frame of reference to say, here I am, this is where I belong. This is how I fit into this old world. And somehow I think that’s one of the advantages to being older.

We’ve become to learn where God wants us in his scheme of things. Oh, that doesn’t mean we’re there yet. Listen to the Apostle Paul. It’s not that I’ve already attained or am already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has laid hold of me. Young people, you need to let Christ Jesus lay hold of you and set you in your place so you know where everything else fits relative to that. And once you get that established, you’ll know what true happiness is. It is only then that you can understand what Jesus says when he says, Blessed are they that mourn? That doesn’t make any sense. That doesn’t tie to happiness. Happiness are people are crying. For they shall be comforted, God said.

Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad.

Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount. How can you be happy when somebody’s persecuting you and saying ugly things about you and they’re going around behind your back? I’ll tell you how, brother and sister. If you found your frame of reference and sunk your roots deep, and you know why you are who you are. Reminds me of the case of the fish in the midst of a hurricane.

You know how they find peace? They go to the deep water. And the storm’s blowing across the top, and the waves may be 50 feet high, but down underneath there’s peace. And so it should be for me as a child of God. And so, how do I fill in the gaps between the times when things just seem to be just right? I must go beyond happiness as the world understands it. I must come to comprehend blessedness as God describes it. And that blessedness, my beloved, is tied inextricably to our frame of reference. His love is the law of the Lord, and in that law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth his fruit in his season.

Conclusion

Turn with me to Ephesians 3 for a concluding passage. And with this, I hope to show you how it ties in with what our theme is this week. The greatest of these. Ephesians 3, beginning in verse 14, we read a prayer of the Apostle Paul for Christians. For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man. May I interrupt the prayer just a moment and say to us, that’s where our strength is going to come from. That’s where our frame of reference must be.

Then what happens outside, as Paul said, is a is a light affliction, which is but for a moment. And it works for us a far more and exceeding and eternal weight of glory. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. Now read on. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. That you, being rooted and grounded in love, that’s our theme for the week, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the whip and length and depth and height, to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. What a marvelous prayer. I pray that for every Christian here. And if you’re here today and you’re not a Christian, I pray that you can come to understand what life is about.

So that when you’re tossed and torn by the propensities of life and the difficulties that’ll come your way, and you can be guaranteed that the longer your life lasts, the more you’ll have.

And with peace. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. We’re going to be learning about this love of Christ Jesus, which surpasses knowledge. Because that’s our frame of reference, ladies and gentlemen. And I thank you for your careful attention.