Harmony Through Happiness (Eat Some Peaches) - Philippians 4:4 Series

2) Seeking Joy in the Wrong Place

So that’s one reason why we have to be commanded to rejoice – because our souls resist it. There’s a second reason I see in this verse. And this is the most important observation you can make about v.4. The command is to rejoice in the Lord. The second thing that keeps us from having real joy is our tendency to seek it from the wrong sources.

Philippians 3:1 Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord!

Philippians 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always.

Habakkuk 3:18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The command is not, “Enjoy,” or “Enjoy life.” It’s “Enjoy God.”

For unbelievers, their emotions are enslaved to circumstances because their joy comes from circumstances. So when circumstances go bad, the joy is gone, no matter how much they try to decide to be happy. But if your joy comes from the way God is, and your experiences of God and enjoyment of God, that can continue as long as God is the way he is, which is forever, because God does not change.

Jesus pronounced a curse on people who have temporary joy (Lk.6:25). Why? Because if your joy is temporary, that means your joy source is temporary, which means it’s something other than God. Whenever you lose your joy, ask, “Where was I seeking my joy from?

Now, you might be thinking, “I’ve tried to find joy in the Lord, but it doesn’t seem to work. I read my Bible and pray, and I don’t really feel all that happy. I watch a game with some friends, and I do feel happy. Games work, movies work; Bible doesn’t – that’s my experience. I go to prayer group, sit through church, and it doesn’t make me happy. I go to a nice restaurant, or go snowboarding, or get a big paycheck, and it does make me happy. How do I learn to find happiness in the Lord?”

Seek Joy IN (not just from) the Lord

The starting place is to notice that little word in. Find your happiness in the Lord – not just from the Lord. There are a lot of Christians who think they are finding their joy in the Lord, when, in reality, they are actually seeking their joy in some earthly thing, and they are just using the Lord to help them get that thing. For a while my family got into watching a reality show about gold mining. It’s interesting, to me, to see how the mining is done. The show tracks the progress of three different gold mining operations, and one of them is the 3:16 Mining Company, named after John 3:16, and the owner is outspoken about being a Christian. Unfortunately, he and his father frequently pray on the program. And I say “unfortunately,” because all they every pray is for God to give them gold. Sometimes they will thank him when they do find gold. When they don’t find gold, he becomes extremely angry or depressed. It’s clear that the source he seeks his happiness from is gold. That’s the great treasure in his heart. And God’s role is to provide him with that treasure – that joy source that he thinks will make him happy. If you get your joy from some other treasure, and you seek that treasure from God, that’s not the same thing as finding your joy in God.