I invite you to turn back to
the book of Philippians. The scriptures are not silent
as to the beginning of this church at Philippi. The Holy Ghost was
pleased to have his writers include the conversion of the Philippian
jailer and his whole house. baptized sometime after midnight. Having heard the gospel, he insisted
on being baptized in the middle of the night. And also Lydia,
which had, and these two were probably the beginnings of that
church at Philippi, meeting down on a bank of a river, Paul preached
to her. She was converted in her house.
And I know that Paul loved these people and prayed for them and
had good reason to believe that they were God's people, giving
thanks to God for their fellowship in the gospel from the first
day and every day thereafter. A man told me one time, fellowship
is fellers in the same ship. We talk about And just because
it's rubbed off on us is the reason we do it. But every now
and then we'll talk about, somebody asked me the other day, when
we gonna have our fellowship? We are, right now. What you're talking about is
when we gonna eat. Our fellowship is in the gospel.
That's what Paul was telling them. Did they eat together?
Well, sure they did. Did they rejoice together? Sure
they did. But that wasn't their fellowship.
Their fellowship was in the gospel. They shared something common.
It was the common faith. They all had the same faith.
They're just one faith. One faith, one baptism. And so he adds this after speaking
of the fellowship in the gospel. He adds this, being confident
of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you, you didn't begin it, he did. And he that began that good work
in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. And then he exhorts them to live
a life honoring to their Lord and Savior, and tells him how
to do it. He said, let this mind be in
you, which was also in Christ Jesus, the Lord. We serve him
in this world. We live in this world with the
mind of Christ. The mind of Christ. He said,
if there be any consolation in Christ, if that's where your
consolation is, if there be any comfort of love, Any fellowship
of the Spirit, any vows and mercies, fulfill you my joy and be like-minded,
having the same love, being of one accord and one mind. What
mind? Let this mind be in you, which
was also in Christ Jesus our Lord. And this is the key to a godly
life and the proper motivations to be servants of God. It's the
love of Christ that constraineth us. It's not, man, if I have
to stand up here and crack a whip and do, I used to, I served as
a foreman, a superintendent over men. And my boss expected me
just to scream and holler at them and crack a whip, keep them
going. That's miserable, that's miserable. And we don't do that in the church.
If you have the love of Christ in you, you'll serve. I don't
preach on giving, but if you have the love of Christ in you,
you'll give. You'll give. This is the key to the proper
motivations to be the servants of God. And every believer is
complete in wanting nothing in Christ. I don't believe in this junk
about a continuing or aggressive, progressive, if you will, sanctification. I'm getting holier and holier
and holier. No, you're not. I'm as holy as
I'm gonna get in Christ. When he takes away this sinful
flesh, I'll be just like him. Till then, I have sin dwelling
in me. Jesus Christ is an all-sufficient
Savior who is a accomplished our redemption, and then ascended
back into glory, took his seat next to his father at God's right
hand, and he's ruling and arranging all things. All things. And our service to him is not
a slavish service, but, and churches do that, they threaten, you know,
and they'll tell you stories about this and that, try to use
fear tactics to get you to do stuff. We serve Him because we love
Him and because we know He's worthy. He's worthy. He's the Lord of lords and King
of kings, and we're glad He is. And having said these things,
Paul tells us in chapter 4, verse 4, and this is my text. He said, Rejoice in the Lord. That's who began the good work
in you. That's who you look to. It's in knowing Him that you're
able to walk and serve God. All things are in Him. You're
complete in Him. Now rejoice in Him. Rejoice in Him. Rejoice in the Lord. And they
must have looked at Him a little funny because He said again.
He said, I say rejoice in Him. Rejoice. Believers are a happy lot. They're
a happy lot. I picked up a book years ago.
I won't give the writer's name. Very distinguished writer. And
the more I read that book, the worse I felt. And after a couple hours, I was
miserable. I was miserable. He talked about all his pitiful
excuses that he called service, and he talked about his pitiful
sacrifices. He talked about how little he
loved, and how unthankful he was before God, and on and on
until finally I realized this man is glorying in his shame. Huh? That's what he was doing.
That's why he was miserable. Back in chapter three, Paul's
describing such men and he says, whose end is destruction, whose
God is their belly, now listen, and whose glory is their shame. They made a righteousness out
of their own shame. They began to look back and look
at these things and that's what they were glorying in. It's not the all-sufficient savior
they gloryed in or had confidence in, but their own experiences
they were glorying in their shame. And they pushed for experiences
of shame. call on men to be ashamed. And
there are things we need to be ashamed of, certainly is. But
Christ is our glory, we don't glory in our shame. It's not my degree of shame that
causes me to rejoice, but his perfectness and his sufferings. And my hope of these things is
in him, and I can't look at him and be ashamed. That's right,
I can. In Him, I'm perfect in Him. I'm secure in Him. I'm a son
in Him. I don't have anything to be ashamed
of in Him. But oh, if I turn them eyes inside,
no rejoicing in there. Repentance. God said he's not
willing that any should perish. None of his elect are gonna perish.
But they're all gonna be brought to repentance. What is that repentance?
What in the world is he talkin' about? He's talkin' about turnin'
from this to him. That's what he's talkin' about.
It's a turnin', just like this. And you didn't turn all the way
around, but you are turnin'. These people, they're turnin'
to him. The more they see him, the more they rejoice. But now
if you look back, huh? If any man draw back, ain't that
what the scripture says? Oh. But we're not of them that
draw back. We're of them that believe to
the saving of the soul. They glory it in their shame.
I don't wanna do that. They turn their shame actually
into a form of righteousness. And this evidently was a problem
that Paul had to deal with. He just keeps talking over and
over and over. He used that word rejoice all through the book
of Philippians. But he tells us the way to deal
with our shame and shows us what we are in Christ. God said, this
is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. If God, the perfect God, unchangeable
God, eternal God, all-knowing God, if he's pleased with Christ,
shouldn't I be? What have I got to be discouraged
about? He's pleased with his son, am I? I am. He's pleased with his appointments.
He's pleased with his condescension. He's pleased with his obedience
and sacrifice. His representative person and
work, he's pleased with him and all that's in him. Everything
that he rested in him, he's pleased. God pleased. If God, who can
see way better than I can, if he's pleased, shouldn't I be
pleased? Actually, and I find myself battling
with this all the time, it's not our view of ourselves that
turns us to God, but our view of Christ. Our view of Christ. You won't see yourself for what
you are till you see him for what he is. Boy, that's the light,
ain't it? And the light comes on, and boy,
woo, that room's a lot dirtier than you thought it was. We got a motel room down in Winston-Salem,
North Carolina one time. I went to a meeting, my wife
and I, and we were just young, didn't have a lot of extra money,
so we got this cheap motel. Everybody else was across the
street in that motel, I guess we were about the only ones.
We went over and got a motel room, got to sleeping, went to
bed. Man, I could hear this crackling
and carrying on. I got up, turned the light on,
and that room was covered with roaches. Boy, we jumped up, got
our luggage, went up there, got my money back, went across the
road to where everybody else was staying, and I got in that
motel. But I still didn't go to sleep. I was still listening
for all that crackling. When Christ is revealed to you,
that's when you see what's in that room. That's when you see
what's in this heart. He's the light. He's the light. And he said, this is the condemnation. Light has come into the world
and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds
are evil. And he said, no man approaches that light. If you
do, it's gonna expose what you are and they won't do it. Salvations of the Lord. And having
established that, Paul tells us to rejoice in the Lord. If everything's in the Lord,
then we ought to rejoice in Him, shouldn't we? We ought to rejoice
in the Lord. And what I want to do this morning
is go through the Scriptures and give you as many things as
I have time for in which we do rejoice. First of all, we rejoice
in the Lord. Everything's in Him. Well, you say, boy, things just
ain't going right for me. This ain't going right and that
ain't going right. That's because you're looking at things. Quit
looking at things. Look to Him. Then things will
work out. But everything in Him, it's solid. It's continual. It's unchangeable. You can't help. You look to Him,
I rejoice. Rejoice in Him. The Lord is the title given to
Christ as the mediatorial king of Israel. Israel, the elect
of God, not Israel, the nation. He tells us in Romans 9, 6, they
are not all Israel, which are of Israel. They are not Israel,
the people, who are of Israel, the person. That was Jacob. God
changed his name to Israel. True Israel is represented in
Israel the man. He's set apart by God. He said
in Romans 9 that the purpose of God, according to election,
might stand. But God's lordship transcends
election. He's Lord of creation. He created
it. And by right of creating, he's
the Lord of creation. You think about that. You know,
on one occasion, he said, now you need to, those
Pharisees come and they said, now you need to sit your disciples
down. They're doing too much talking
about you. You need to sit them down. And
he said, if I sit them down, he said these rocks would start
crying out immediately. He's Lord of creation. In Romans 14, eight, he's Lord
of the dead and the living. That's what it says. He said,
whether we live, we live unto the Lord. Who's that talking
about? That's talking about everybody. Are you alive? Whether we live, we live unto
the Lord. Whether we die, we die unto the
Lord. Whether we live, therefore, or
die, we are the Lord's. We belong to Him. Scripture said, even the winds
and the waves obey His voice. And the devils, before He ever
opened His mouth, called Him Lord. But we rejoice in his lordship
because this office was given to him to save poor sinners like
you and I. What would we do if he wasn't
the Lord? What would we do if what men
said were true, that we had a free will? And this free will bent
to do nothing but sin. Sin, sin, sin. The good that
I would do, I do not. What would you do if he wasn't
Lord? What would you do if he didn't intervene in your life?
What would you do if he didn't cross your path with a preacher?
What would you do if he just left you in your ignorance like
he did so many? Huh? Oh, we rejoice in his Lordship. He's Lord. Thank God he has control
over this mind and heart. Thank God. He's the Lord. He's
the Lord. He arranges all things and orchestrates
all things for our salvation and the glory of his great name. Were it not for his sovereign
lordship, no man could be saved. I love what John said. He said,
greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world. My soul. When he pictures in
the book of Revelation, when he pictures Christ coming down,
he comes over and hears Satan, that roaring lion, seeking whom
he may devour. And the Lord comes down and just
puts a necklace on him with a chain and said, you ain't going nowhere. The devil is God's devil. He's
Lord. He's Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. And then secondly, we rejoice
in God. the triune God who made him Lord. If I understand the scriptures right,
Christ is God come into the flesh. He's God come into the flesh.
And Paul never ceases to bless the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, through whom we're predestinated unto sonship. according to the
good pleasure of his will. And it's by him that we believe
in God that raised him from the dead and gave him glory that
our faith and hope might be in God. We rejoice in God. And it's by his merits that we're
permitted to enter into the holiest by his blood and draw near with
a true heart sprinkled from an evil conscience, washed with
pure water from the word of God. And by his person and work revealed
to us, God the Holy Ghost makes us to cry, Abba, Father. What a privilege. How we ought
to rejoice that we can bow our heads and say, Father, Father. We rejoice in God, the true and
living God. To know him is eternal life.
And then thirdly, we rejoice in his appearance on this earth. Think about old Simeon. Christ
hadn't come yet. He was down in that temple. He
was getting old, getting old. But the Lord said, you ain't
gonna die till you've seen the Lord's Christ. Old Simeon hung
on to that promise. Every time he'd go down there,
he'd look and look and look. One day he went down there, and
there he was. He was a tiny baby. Eight days old, Mary bringing
him in to be circumcised. And she carried that little baby,
and old Samson came over and took that baby up in his arms.
He said, now let us thy servant depart. I've seen thy salvation. We rejoice in his appearance
on this earth. Peace on earth, good will toward
men. Thousands of years of prophecy
fulfilled in his appearance. And Paul said, once in the end
of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself. God and man in one glorious person. God condescending to dwell in
a body made of flesh. The word was made flesh. Over
and over he tells us about the one mediator between God and
man, the man, Christ Jesus. And I love what that preacher
preached years ago up at 13th Street. The title of his message,
There's a Man in Glory. There's a man already there.
And if there's one, there might be two. That's my hope sitting
up there at the right hand of God. There's a man in glory. You think about that. And he's
the guarantor that all the elect of God are gonna be there. Everything concerning our salvation's
tied to this man. And oh, how we rejoice in this
miracle of grace, the Lord Jesus Christ. And then fourthly, we
rejoice in all the mighty works that we've seen. Turn with me
to Luke chapter 19. I wanna show you something that
this world has never seen. Men labor hard to produce what
they call miracles. Or at least to convince themselves
that their foolish inventions are miracles. But in Luke 19
verse 37, it said, when he was come nigh, Even now at the descent
of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began
to praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that
they had seen, saying, blessed be the King that cometh in the
name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest. And
some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him,
Master, rebuke thy disciples And he answered and said unto
them, I tell you that if these should hold their peace, the
stones would immediately cry out. Now they did see the dead
raised, they did see the lepers cleansed, they saw the blind
giving their sight to the deaf to hear, they saw devils cast
out of men. And everything was miraculous,
but every believer sees past that to the real miracle of grace. Here is a representative man
fulfilling the will of God. You don't think that's a miracle?
My soul, our Lord, he wasn't a big, muscular man. He didn't walk around and just,
you know, intimidate by his presence. He was just an average man. Just
an average man. Wasn't loud. He went over there. Walked in
the temple. Here's all these money changers.
And he went over there and sat down on the bench and started
platting the whip. What would you think this morning
if I started platting? I would just sit down up there and start
platting. What in the world did he do? And he took that whip
and he run. I mean, the temple was a big
place. He run all them money changers
out of that temple. You don't think that was a miracle?
Three or four of them could have wrestled him down. No, they couldn't
touch him. Couldn't touch him. Here's a big crowd. They're in
this city, and it's way up on the hill, and there's a big cliff
there, thousands of feet drop. They took him out there and going
to throw him off the cliff. He turned around and walked right
through the middle of it. Nobody laid a hand on him. You reckon that's a miracle? But here's a greater miracle
than that. He came down here as a representative man, made
of a woman. Now listen, made under the law. He's the law giver. He was made
under the law as God, as Jehovah's servant. And he obeyed that law
perfectly from the cradle to the cross. And even the cross
was an act of his obedience as Jehovah's servant. You think
about that. He accomplished salvation. He
accomplished my righteousness. He is my hope. That's the miracle. That's the miracle. And that's
what we sing about and rejoice in. They saw the King coming in the
name of the Lord. That's what they saw and that's
what they were crying out there in Luke 19. the promised one
whose coming was to do for poor sinners what they could never
do for themselves. And the real miracles of God
every believer sees, all this accomplished redemption and imputed
righteousness to his saints and his sovereign rule over all things.
They see that. And the whole of his disciples
rejoiced and praised God for the mighty works that they'd
seen. And then fifthly, in Luke chapter 10 verse 20, He gives
us the fifth thing to rejoice in. They came back and they said,
Lord, the devils are sucking to us. We tell them to come out
and they come out. And they were thrilled with this
power that He had given them to heal the sick and cast out
demons. You know what the Lord told them?
He said, don't rejoice in that. You want to rejoice? Rejoice
that your name's written down in the Lamb's Book of Life. All the rest of this, His death,
His righteousness, all this, ain't got nothing to do with
you if your name's not written in that book. I see many things and rejoice
in them all, but none bring me joy to my heart more than this.
My name's written in the Lamb's Book of Life. All the other work is of no consequence
to me if my name's not in the book. Well, preachers, so how
does one find out or have hope that his name's written in that
book? How do you know your name's written in the Lamb's Book of
Life? By being enabled of God to do what no other can do, believe. on the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, you believe not, because
you're not my sheep. Isn't that what he said? All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. But this lot over here, you search
the scriptures. In them you think you have eternal
life, and they are they that testify of me, but you won't
come to me. that you might have life, but
all that the Father giveth me will come to me. And then sixthly, we rejoice
in the work that we're privileged to do. In John chapter four, verse 35,
our Lord said, say not ye there are yet four months, and then
cometh the harvest. Behold, I say unto you, lift
up your eyes and look on the fields, for they're white already
to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth
wages and gathers fruit unto life eternal, that both he that
soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. It's a joy as well as a privilege
to plant his gospel seed and it's equally joyful and a blessing
to gather his wheat. It is, isn't it? Paul told those
Corinthians, he said, I have begotten you through the gospel. You think that wasn't a joy to
him? He called them my joy. So we rejoice in the husbandry
of Christ in his church. And then lastly, John 5.35, he's
talking about God's ambassador, John the Baptist, and the Lord
said, he was a burning and a shining light, and you were willing for
a season to rejoice in his light. God's people rejoice in the light
of his ambassadors. Oh, how I used to thank God for
Henry Mahan. all my soul. I was so glad God
gave him a knowledge of the gospel. And he could stand up there and
just tell me and illustrate it as clear as daylight to me. And I rejoiced in that light
that he had. He was a burning and a shining
light and I rejoiced for a season. But all his ambassadors are gonna
die. They're gonna get old and can't
talk no more and can't walk. I'm already at that But we rejoice for a season.
We rejoice in that time allotted that God has set them out. And they feed on their light
and they grow in that light and they rejoice in that light. And
that light's not of themselves, but of God. And the more we're
able to hear Him, the more clear that becomes. You know, they
told old Simeon, they said, he said, where do I go? And they
said, well, if you wanna learn something about God, go down
to Jerusalem. When? Well, you wait till the
feast day. On such a day, they're gonna
start these feasts, and they'll come every week, you know, and
we're gonna go through all these feasts. You go down there, you'll
learn something. So he did, he got him a caravan
together, went down to Jerusalem, sat through all the feasts, come
away as ignorant as he was when he went down. What am I gonna do now? They
gave him some scrolls. They said, read these. So now
he's coming back and he's in his chariot and he's reading
Isaiah in the scroll. He's reading it. Still didn't
understand anything. God sends Philip out. Philip
spies him up there reading the scriptures. Only one in the caravan
that had scriptures. He ran up there beside of him.
He said, you understand what you're reading? He said, how
can I unless somebody tells me what it means? He said, scoot over. And he got
up there, now listen, and he said he started from that verse
and preached Christ to him. That's what God's ambassadors
preach. That's the light. That's the
light. And those who know it rejoice
in that light. When the Lord first begun to
work in me, I found myself realizing for the first time what spiritual
darkness was. Our Lord said, if the light,
what you think is light in you, all these things you think you
know about God, if the light that's in you be darkness, how
great is that darkness? If even the things you think
you know about God are nothing but darkness, then how great
is it? But oh, what joy, first time
you hear the gospel. God floods your heart and soul
with that light. I can scarce take it all in.
I was writing so hard when Henry preached, I'd break the lid out
of pencil trying to get it all down. I just, oh, it was the
answer to so many questions I had. And how we ought to rejoice in
God's ambassadors. In Romans chapter 10, where he
talks about hearing God's ambassador, he said, how you gonna hear without
a preacher? And how they gonna preach except
I send them? And he said, that's what that
old prophet was talking about when he said, how beautiful are
the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings. How beautiful are their feet. Rejoice in the Lord, always. And again, he said, rejoice. Actually, believers have no reason
not to rejoice. Huh? Oh, I lost my TV. Rejoice. Rejoice. Oh, I lost my wife. Rejoice. That doesn't change a thing between
you and God. Don't change a thing. Nothing,
nothing interrupts. You can rejoice in that when
you can't rejoice in anything else. You can rejoice. You can
lay there. My wife was laying there in the
bed. Couldn't hardly talk. Had to convert everything we
gave her. We had to convert it into a liquid
and give it to her just a tiny little bit at a time. But she
can still look up at me and smile, and I talk to her about the Lord.
You can still rejoice. What is there out here in this
world that you can do that with? Nothing. Nothing. It's all in
Him. That's why Paul said rejoice.
Rejoice. All right, thank you.