Great Mysteries of the Faith
Am I Really To Be Joyful In All Circumstances?
Philippians 4:4
Recently, I came across this little snippet about having a bad day. Let me share it with you this morning. You know it’s going to be a bad day when:
1. You call the phone company and they tell you to call back at a later date due to phone troubles.
2. You turn on the news and they are showing emergency routes out of Porter Township.
3. You arrive at work to see a Sixty Minutes news team waiting for you in your office.
4. Your birthday cake collapses under the weight of the candles.
5. The preacher again starts his sermon with another bad joke.
Now, it seems to me that there are going to be bad days in life. Let’s take a quick survey. How many of you have ever had a bad day? How many of you have had a bad day this week? How many of you would just say this has been a bad week? Bad days are common, but they don’t have to get us down.
We have been talking for a number of weeks on some of the great mysteries of the faith. This morning, we are going to be taking a look at the topic of joy. Are we really to be joyful in all circumstances? To me, Philippians 4:4 is the definitive verse on this topic. Turn there with me or follow along in your sermon notes.
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice!
This morning, I want you to think back to the Old Testament with me for a moment. Go back to Moses and the Ten Commandments. Let’s see how many we can name.
1. You shall have no other God’s before me.
2. You shall not make for yourself an idol.
3. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord.
4. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and mother.
6. You shall not murder.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not give false testimony.
10. You shall not covet.
Now, I think most of you would agree that when God gave the Israelites these rules, they were not just nice suggestions that they were to follow when they felt like it. They were called commandments, which means that God ordered the Israelites to follow them. Now, repeat our verse with me in Philippians. Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice! As with the Ten Commandments given in the Old Testament, this is a command as well. God is not saying, “Have joy when you feel like it.” He is not saying, “Have joy because it is better than being sad.” He is saying that part of our duty as Christians is to be people of joy. Not part of the time. Not when we feel like it. We are to rejoice in the Lord always. This includes having joy in three places where joy is not always evident. This morning, I want to take a look at these three places and how we are to have joy in them. Before we do, let’s look to the Lord for guidance.
Place #1: We are to have joy in our church services.
I once heard of a church in the south that started serving coffee during their worship service. A first time visitor thought this was very odd, so he asked his neighbor in the pew why this occurred. The church member replied, “We serve coffee to make sure everyone is thoroughly awake for the drive home.” That sounds like a very boring church service, and a boring service is one that lacks rejoicing. Have you ever been bored in church? Maybe you need a little more joy in your life.
The fact of the matter is that there is a lack of joy in most church services these days. If I were to have a group of non-Christians stand outside the doors of churches in the area on a Sunday morning and asked them to describe the mood of the people going out, what kind of responses do you think I would get? Would they see smiles or would they see faces that looked like they sucked on a lemon for the last hour? Would they see people who looked like they were alive in the Spirit and had just met with God, or would they see people who looked like they had just woke up? Would they see people who hang around after church for some sweet fellowship, or would they see a massive stampede for the door of people trying to get out? These are all questions we need to ask if we are going to be a church that attracts those who are non-Christians.
There once was a young boy who went to spend the week with his grandfather on the farm. While walking around, he noticed the chickens. They were scratching and playing around. The little lad said, “They ain’t got it.” Next, he saw a colt playing in the field and kicking up its heels to which he replied, “He ain’t got it.” After examining all of the animals on his grandfather’s farm to see that none of them had “it”, the boy finally found the old donkey in the barn. When he saw the donkey’s long, frowning face and the way the donkey just stood there, he screamed for his grandfather to come quick. “I found it. I found it,” the boy kept yelling. When the grandfather asked what he had found he said, “Pawpaw, I found an animal that has the same kind of religion that you have.”
Do you think that the grandfather in this story was having a joyful time in his church? Probably not. The fact of the matter is that many of us have probably left church at one point or another with the same look on our face as the donkey or the grandfather. It looks something like this, and it is usually followed by the words, “That was a great sermon pastor. See you next week.” You could describe the service in a number of ways, but joy would not make the list. That’s a shame.
Can I be honest with you this morning? The church service should be the easiest place for us to find joy and get charged up to face the week. If we do not have joy, it is usually because of one of three reasons.
1. The church service is dead and is long overdue for some changes to shake it out of the doldrums.
2. We came to church with a wrong attitude and let it get in the way of focusing on God and His glory.
3. We are not Christians and do not have His joy yet.
There is a common theme that links all three of these reasons together. In a word, it is – choice. You have a choice to be a Christian or not to be a Christian. You have a choice to change a church service to make it more joyful. And, most importantly, you have the choice to come to church with the wrong attitude. It is your choice to have joy in the church service. What will you choose? Will you choose to sing out the words of the songs we sing no matter how new or old they may be because they glorify God? Will you choose to look for the good going on in the church instead of focusing on the negative? Will you choose to listen to the messages instead of letting your mind drift away? These are all keys to having joy in God’s church.
Place#2: We are to have joy in everyday events.
Being a Christian is a great deal, except for one thing. You don’t get any days off. After all, the church is more than a building. It is the people that make up the church, so most non-Christians are going to make their assumptions on what your church service is like by how the church members act outside the building walls. Because of this, we have to be constantly aware of how we act. People are starving for joy in their lives. They try to find it everywhere, and they even look for it in the lives of Christians. So, if you show no joy outside the walls of the church building, people are going to assume that there is no joy in the church.
What are some everyday occurrences that can rob you of your joy? Here are some of my pushbuttons. Bad drivers are by far the number one robber of my joy. I can be having a great day that can be turned around in a blink of an eye by a missed turn signal or a slow driver. Sometimes, I allow myself to get worked up to the point where my joy is taken from me for the day. This is such a small and insignificant thing, but it has the power to change the entire day.
I am sure that I am not the only one who is affected by this. Maybe the driving thing does not tick you off, but I bet there is one thing that pushes your buttons. Maybe it is the telemarketer that always calls right when you are sitting down to eat dinner, and they will not take no for an answer. Maybe it is a child who has not cleaned their room after being told to for three straight days. Maybe it is the husband who can’t seem to get the toilet seat back to the down position. Maybe it is the wife who always wants to talk about important life issues during the big game. We all have minor irritations that can rob us of our joy everyday, so what do we do with them?
First of all, we need to realize that the little stuff that happens to us everyday is just stuff. It should never take our joy. So what if someone cuts you off – you still have a loving Savior named Jesus. Who cares if the telemarketer calls during dinner – you still have a home in heaven. These little things that happen are only big deals when we make them. Remember, people are watching to see how we handle these types of things. What kind of message are you sending them? Secondly, we must realize that Satan is up to no good. He knows how to push your buttons and he loves to do it. If you allow little things to rob you of your joy, you can expect many more of them to be coming. He loves to rob the church of the joy it is intended to have because he knows that a church without joy is lacking the power it needs to save the lost.
Place #3: We are to have joy in trials and tribulations.
I don’t need to ask you if you have ever been through a trial or tribulation. Everyone here has gone through a rough time because life is unfair sometimes. Some of you are going through a tough time even as I speak these words. In these tough times, will you choose to retain your joy? Is it even possible?
When we go through tough times, we have so many responses. Some people choose to wallow in their own pity. Some people blame God. Some people try to ignore the situation and hope it goes away. The proper thing to do is to trust God with a heart of joy. It is also the toughest thing to do. Like I stated with minor irritations, hard times should not be able to take away your joy. That does not mean that you never shed a tear. It does not mean that you have to be happy about what you go through. Joy is different than that. It is an emotion deep in your heart of hearts that tells you that everything is going to be alright because God is in control. It is a reassurance that nothing can steal the most important thing in your life – a relationship with God that ends in an eternity in paradise with Him. You may lose your health, money, friendships, and those you love, but nothing in this world can take the love of Jesus from you. We will still hurt, but we will have the joy of the Lord as long as we cling to it. We must make the effort to hang onto this joy no matter what happens because nothing here can take away our eternity.
Paul wrote this command while he was in prison. He sat there day in and day out not knowing whether he would be killed that day or not. This would be enough to take the joy out of most of us, but he would not allow it. He wrote rejoice in the Lord always. He knew that the days on earth were short compared to eternity. He knew that if he were killed he would immediately go to the perfectness of heaven. He knew all that they could take away was this life full of pain, strife, and sadness and replace it with a life full of glory. We need to remember that as we go through tough times.
We also need to remember that there is always someone who is worse off than we are as we go through those tough times. I recently read a study which found the following. If you have food in your refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead, and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of the people in the world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and in a spare dish somewhere, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the lonliness of imprisonment, or the pangs of starvations, you are ahead of 500 million people in this world. And, if you can attend church without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are more blessed than 3 billion people in the world.
This can be a rough place even though we lived in a truly blessed society. In order to keep our joy even in the tough times, we must stick together. We must help each other out and count it all joy like James tells us in the opening lines of his book. This joy must start with a relationship with Jesus Christ. It then grows as we worship together, and it soon spreads into our everyday lives. Finally, joy can sustain us as we go through trials and tough times. Being joyful is a command, not just a suggestion – but we often let even little irritations take it from us. This morning, if you need this joy in your lives, I pray that you come to the front pew and pray with me to accept Jesus, the joy giver, into your life. If you have already done this, I pray that you make the commitment to seek out joy in all of your circumstances. Finally, if you are going through a rough time and would like those in the church to pray for you to have your joy restored, I pray that you come this morning as well and let the church rally around you as we close in song. Let’s pray first.
