Rejoice in the Lord
Christ Church and St Mary’s, 17th
December 2000
Philippians 4:4-7
He was on death row. The walls stank and were damp. There wasn't much light. The chains around his ankles rubbed the
sores they had created. Any moment now,
he didn't know when, he would hear approaching feet, the rattle of keys, and
know that his moment had come. Yet by
the light of a candle he dictated a letter to his distant friends, and his
faithful scribe wrote down his words as they bubbled from his lips. "Write this," he said. "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice." He looked around the walls. And this: “The Lord is near.” He smiled to himself. "Do not worry about anything..." And the letter continued.
How do we know we are growing as
Christians? I would suggest there are
two marks of growth which we see in both our readings today. If we come face to face supernaturally with
God there are only two possible responses: the first is to change, to repent,
to try and become more like Jesus. The
second is to rejoice, to give thanks.
If we are really meeting with God we will know both these things
happening in our lives. Think of the
prodigal son. When he came back to his
father, he repented. There was nothing
else he could do. But I imagine he
joined in with the rejoicing pretty soon afterwards.
Judy talked about repentance last
week, so I thought I would focus on rejoicing this week. There is not much rejoicing around in our
society. There is not much celebration. I get a magazine called the Week which
summarizes the news of the week. In one
tiny corner it has a section headed “It wasn’t all bad”. We are too busy, too burdened - perhaps too
afraid of real joy. When we do
celebrate as a culture, we tend to do it with copious amounts of alcohol, so
that we can say the following morning, "I had such a good time I can't
even remember it." The whole of
our public life seems orientated around the negative and the failing. And if we are honest, we ourselves find it
so easy to slip in to the negative, the cynical, the complaining, the
moaning. Gratitude is sometimes hard to
find, even though we all love it when we receive it. It's not a new phenomenon-think of the ten lepers who were all
healed, but only one came back to say thank you.
But to rejoice is a command, It's a
command that sets us on the right path.
Thanksgiving is the gateway to God's presence. That's why Paul writes in one sentence “Rejoice in the Lord
always”, and in the next says “The Lord is near”. Being full of gratitude and praise is not a way of brain washing
ourselves, or the power of positive thinking, but reminding us of reality. “Why you are you cast down, oh my soul, and
why are you disquieted within me?” says
the psalmist. And then he writes,
"Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God." The act of doing it creates in us the sense
that God is present and active in our lives.
That he is bigger than any of our natural understanding. That the supernatural God is near.
The Westminster catechism tells us
that our chief end is to worship God and enjoy him for ever. Joy is one of the fruits of the spirit, it is the motor which drives the engine. So a mature church is one which is able to
change but also which knows how to turn off the moaning and get on with the
praising.
We face many challenges in the
future and we hear a lot about challenge at the moment. But the man who told the Philippians to
rejoice faced a lot of challenges. He
faced death. It wasn't his outward
circumstances that caused him to rejoice, but the reality of God. The right place to meet any future challenge
is in a place where we are full of praise and thanksgiving, both for each other
and to God. Maybe this is one area
where we need to repent.
I sometimes get people saying to me
after a sermon, "Nice sermon-thank you very much." I think if people had gone up to John the
Baptist and said that after one of his sermons in the wilderness he would not
have been impressed. He would probably
have said, "Well what are you going to do about it?" So I thought we would finish this sermon by
doing something about it. By becoming
people of thanksgiving. On your chair
you have a piece of paper. As we head
for Christmas and a new year, I thought it would be good if we could write down
all the things we can think of that we would like to give thanks to God for as
we look to these times. So keep going
as long as you can, and when you get home keep thanking some more. And I'm sure that the peace of God will
guard your hearts and minds.