Go with me back to Philippians
chapter four. Philippians four. The apostle gives us two commandments
in this one verse. The first one is rejoice in the
Lord always. The second one is, and again
I say, rejoice. We have so much reason to rejoice,
don't we? We really do. We have so much
reason to rejoice. I was just over in Spring Lake. last weekend with our dear brethren. I would encourage you, if you
can, get over there and meet them. You'd fall in love with
Christ in them. You really would, just like we
have with each other. But we had four services, Friday night,
Saturday night, and two on Sunday morning. And then Hannah and
the girls and I, we got in our car and we came back as fast
as we could. Came in a little bit late. I
sat on the back pew of Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church, and my
heart rejoiced within me. It really did. I rejoiced. I sat back there thinking, we
are so blessed to have this gospel. We were surrounded by the gospel,
and we got in our car and drove to another place, and I was surrounded
by the gospel. I'm just as thankful as anybody.
So blessed. I was sitting back there thinking,
I don't really care who's preaching it. I really don't. I don't care if it's me or another
man that God has called to preach it. We don't rejoice in the man,
do we? We rejoice in the God he's preaching. We're rejoicing in the God that
is being preached. So I was gone and I asked a dear brother, fellow
pastor, to come over and preach Sunday morning while I was gone. And I heard from every person
I talked to how wonderful the messages were. And I'm serious,
I rejoiced. I absolutely rejoiced. I was
so happy for him. I was praying for him. Lord,
bless him. I was so happy for him. I was
so happy for you. So thankful God would bless him
and meet with you. So thankful for that. All right,
now let me ask you this. Who do you like better, me or
him? A believer says, what difference
does it make? Christ is being preached. Isn't that right? Look with me
at Philippians 1, Philippians chapter 1 verse 18. Paul said, What then, notwithstanding
every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached,
and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. Paul said,
I'm not going to get hung up on the man. I'm going to get
hung up on the Christ of the man. We have so much reason to rejoice. We have so much reason to rejoice. We have the gospel. We have the
gospel. After you get past everything,
all of us can say we have the gospel. We need to be reminded of our
reason to rejoice every day, every single day. And this is
the reason why. The world that we live in makes
it very difficult to rejoice. Very, very difficult. The things
that we see going on around us, understandably so. The things
that we see going on around us, they make it very hard for us
to rejoice. Very hard. The only thing that
sin can leave us with is nothing to rejoice in. That's all sin
can do for us and leave behind for us. Nothing to rejoice in. Crime is the result of sin. Death, illness, that's the result
of sin. Loss, hate, all of those things
is the result of sin. And that's pretty much all we
can see going on around us. Pretty much, when you look around,
that's about all you can see going on around us. But turn
with me, if you would, to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. 2 Corinthians 4, verse 15 says, for all things
are for your sakes. Everything that's going on is
for your sakes. That the abundant grace might
through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God. For which cause we faint not. But though our outward man perish,
yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction,
and that's what we're enduring walking through this life, walking
through this world. It's a light affliction, but
it is an affliction. Our light affliction, which is
but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal
weight of glory. Now watch this, while we look
not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not
seen. For the things which are seen
are temporary. If you can see it, it's temporary. But the things which are not
seen are eternal. Our Lord said, in this world
you shall have tribulation, but you be of good cheer. Rejoice. I have overcome the world. Now, I want to remind us tonight
of three reasons to rejoice in the Lord. I just want to remind
us of three reasons to rejoice in the Lord, and I pray this
is real. I pray that this is applicable
and fervent to us. We need a reminder to rejoice
in the Lord, and I believe I have three of them here. First, turn
with me to Judges 13. Judges chapter 13. And most everybody in here has
a Bible like mine now. It's page 358 in the Old Testament. Judges 13, verse 2 says, there was a certain
man of Zorah of the family of the Danites whose name was Manoah. And his wife was barren and bare
not." She didn't have any children. And the angel of the Lord appeared
unto the woman and said unto her, Behold now thou art barren
and barest not, but thou shalt conceive and bear a son. Verse
6 says, Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, A man
of God came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance
of an angel of God, very terrible. But I asked him not whence he
was, neither told he me his name." Verse 8 says, Then Manoah entreated
the Lord and said, Oh, my Lord, let the man of God, which thou
did sin, come again unto us and teach us what we shall do unto
the child that shall be born. He believed. She told him, God
said, we're going to have a child. And he believed. And he said,
Lord, would you send that messenger again? Tell us what we need to
do. Verse nine. And God hearkened
to the voice of Manoah. And the angel of God came again. He came and told both of them
again. Verse 17 says, And Manoah said
unto the angel of the Lord, What is thy name, that when thy sayings
come to pass, we may do thee honor? And the angel of the Lord
said unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it
is secret?" My name is secret. Everything concerning me is secret. And that's the truth, isn't it?
It's a secret that must be revealed. Verse 19, So Manoah took a kid
with a meat offering, and offered it upon a rock unto the Lord. And the angel did wondrously,
And Manoah and his wife looked on, for it came to pass when
the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar, that the
angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar. And Manoah
and his wife looked on it, and fell on their faces to the ground. But the angel of the Lord did
no more appear to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew
that he was an angel of the Lord. And Manoah said unto his wife,
we shall surely die because we have seen God. And I'm gonna tell you something,
if a person ever sees God, and that's the first thing that'll
go through his mind, I'm a dead man. I'm a goner. Verse 23, but his wife said unto
him, if the Lord were pleased to kill us, he would not have
received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands,
neither would he have showed us all these things, nor would
as at this time have told us such things as these. Here's
the first reason for us to rejoice. It's because He chose to reveal
these things to us. He chose to reveal these things
to us. If He were going to kill us,
didn't He say, I kill, I make alive, I hold the keys of hell
and death. If He were going to kill us,
He would never have showed us all these things, never. He would
have left us in the dark. He would have left it all a secret.
What does the Bible even mean? What is the situation with salvation? He would have completely left
us alone. But He's not going to kill us
because He has revealed His truth to us. He's revealed Christ to
us. Thank God for the revelation of Christ through the gospel
of his word. Thank God. When the things of
this world absolutely rip every ounce of joy out of your heart,
you ever have that happen to you? You can go along and it's
a great day. Weather's good, sky's blue, everything's
great and then all of a sudden, The next time that happens, remember
this, God has revealed the eternal salvation of Christ to us. You can stop right there. It
doesn't matter what it is after that. You can rest right there. And these joyless things, all
of these joyless things are going to be over soon. They're going
to be over. The sorrow is temporary. If you can see sorrow, it's temporary,
absolutely temporary. He's going to wipe every tear
from our eye, every tear. And real soon, we're going to
rejoice forevermore, forevermore. That's a reason to rejoice, isn't
it? Turn with me, if you would, to 2 Chronicles chapter 7. That's
page 607. 2 Chronicles chapter 7. Now this portion right here is
the consecration of the temple that Solomon built. They dedicated the temple and
he prayed on behalf of all the people. 2 Chronicles 7. Verse 1 says, Now when Solomon
had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven and
consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory
of the Lord filled the house. And the priest could not enter
into the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord had filled
the Lord's house. And when all the children of
Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the Lord
upon the house, they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground
upon the pavement and worshiped and praised the Lord, saying,
for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever. The second
reason for us to rejoice, and then after we've finished rejoicing,
rejoice again. is because his mercy endureth
forever. It is forever. Our sorrow doesn't
just come from what we see going on around us. Our sorrow comes
from what we see going on in us. And when we get a good look at
what is actually going on in us, all we see is failure, pride,
jealousy, resentment, hatred, rebellion. 41 times though in this book, 41
times it says, His mercy endureth forever. His mercy endureth forever. The fire of God came down on
the sacrifice and our sacrifice was Christ himself and because
he was consumed The glory of the Lord has filled this house
and we all now can bow ourselves, we can worship Him, we can praise
Him, we can rejoice over the fact that His mercy through that
sacrifice will endure forever. It will endure forever. There's
no more payments to be made and His payment will never be exhausted. There are so many things that
I thought of that will end. And I'll give you one example.
I've always thought this was strange. When Brother Walter
Groover and Brother Cody Groover built their houses in Mexico,
they couldn't buy land because they were Americans. They had to lease their property.
They got a 50-year lease. And I asked them about it, and
they said, well, we figure that'll outlive us, and we're not going
to worry about it. But I couldn't help but think,
well, what happens when the lease is up? Then what? Well, you know, we should be
able to renew it. Well, great, but what if you
can't? That's a little too iffy for me, right? There's no lease on life here. His mercy endureth forever. It'll never run out. It'll never
end, never. Forever. When is he going to
be done with me and finally just get rid of me? Never. His mercy
endureth forever. Forever. Go with me if you would
to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Number one, we can rejoice because
Christ has chosen to reveal all these things to us. The second
reason we can rejoice is because Christ's mercy endures forever. Now look at 1 Corinthians 2 verse
9 says, but as it is written, I have not seen nor ear heard
neither have entered into the heart of man the things which
God hath prepared for them that love him." The third reason that
we can rejoice is because of everything that he has prepared
for us to enjoy and rejoice in for all eternity. I hath not
seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man
the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." If we
could enter into that, it would bring great, great rejoicing. The next time that everything
here is falling apart, this world just starts crumbling out from
under us, remember this. We have here no continuing city. This is not our city. Why does
he always get a break and I never get a break? It's because this
is not my city. It's his city. That's the reason
why. We have no root here. You know, people want to dig
in roots, right? We have no foundation here. This is not our city, but we
have one coming. We are right now marching to
Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion. We're marching upward to Zion,
the beautiful city of God. Turn with me, if you would, to
Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11 verse 13 says, These
all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having
seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced
them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on
the earth. For they that say such things
declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they
had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they
might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire
a better country, that is, in heavenly, wherefore God is not
ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them
a city." Is that not fantastic? Back in
verse 10 here in Hebrews 11 it says, For He looked for a city
which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. What are the foundations? That
is pretty much always our first answer. Christ, His blood, His
righteousness, right? On Christ the solid rock we stand. Now it is difficult, it is very
difficult to rejoice in something that your eye has never seen.
Your ear has never heard and your heart has never imagined.
It is extremely difficult to just rejoice, have a moment to
rejoice in something you've never seen. You don't know anything
about it. Never even imagined anything like it. But the song
says, how firm a foundation you saints of the Lord is laid for
your faith in his excellent word. How firm a foundation. Now I
cannot describe to us the glory of New Jerusalem. And here's the last thing that
I want us to rejoice in. There is a place where His people dwell with Him. God called it a new heaven and
a new earth. And it's nothing like this one.
It is nothing like this one. And he calls it New Jerusalem. That's what he calls it. The
beautiful city of God. I cannot begin to describe the
things that he has prepared. I've never seen it, never heard
it, never imagined it. None of us have. But our Lord
gave us something for our faith, for our hope. for our rejoicing. He gave us something in his excellent
word to give us a little glimpse of it. All right, a little glimpse
of it. I cannot begin to describe the
actual city, but I can show you the actual foundations of it. This, I hope, will give us a
small idea of what glory is going to be like with Him. I mean glory
with Him. Look with me, if you would, at
Revelation 21. Now, the purpose of this is not
to take our eyes off Christ. The purpose of this is to glorify
Him, okay? Glorify Him in everything He's
done for us, everything He's prepared for us. I have seen
a little bit of construction. Just a little bit. I'm not going
to pretend to know something I don't know. But I've seen just
a little bit of construction. And I roughly kind of know how
a foundation is laid. The first thing that you do is
you dig a footer. Isn't that right? You go around
and you dig a footer. where your foundation needs to
go. And what that means is wherever you're going to put that house
and wherever it's going to sit, the place you start, your first
layer is dirt. Isn't that right? You dig this
footer and when you're looking down in it, it's dirt. That's
what you're going to start on. Okay. The second layer, if I'm
right, if I'm wrong, forgive me, second layer is gravel. You can put gravel in there. The third layer is rebar, steel,
holds it all together. The fourth layer is concrete. You pour concrete on all that
and it sets up a big concrete level footer. The fifth layer
is, and you can do it different ways, and the one I've seen it
the most is cinder block. The sixth layer is a black piece
of plastic that goes on top of that to keep the termites out. The seventh layer is a piece
of pressure-treated two-by-something, two-by-six, two-by-eight something.
It gets bolted down to the cinder block, and after all that's done,
then you start building your house. Isn't that right? That's
when you start building your house. Okay, now after you're
finished, after you're finished, you're going to invite some people
over to your house, And you're going to show them what you've
done. All right? We want you guys to come over
and see what we've done here. Do you take them around and show
them the dirt? Well, here's the gravel. You've got to see this rebar.
You've got to see this. Is that what you're showing?
No. That's the ugly part. That's
the part you cover up, right? You cover every bit of that up.
You fill all that in with dirt. People never even see that part.
All right, look right here in Revelation 21, verse 14 says,
And the wall of the city had twelve foundations and in them
the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb." Now every word
has spiritual significance. Every word. Our Lord did build
His church on the twelve apostles. He did. He used those men to
build His church. Down in verse 19 it says, the
foundations of the wall of the city were garnished With all
manner of precious stones, the first foundation was jasper. Revelation 4 says he that sat
on the throne was to look upon as a jasper stone. That's Christ. It said clear as crystal. That's
Christ. The entire city of God, first
and foremost, is built on Christ. That's the first foundation.
So every word here has spiritual significance. But just for one
second, all right, for one second, let's just listen to what he's
actually telling us. Eye hath not seen, ear hasn't
heard, and the heart could never imagine this New Jerusalem, this
beautiful city that God has prepared for those that love Him. The
foundation, though, has 12 layers. Verse 19 says, the first one
is a solid slab of jasper. It's a huge diamond, clear as
crystal, the first layer. Could you imagine that? Just
a slab. Big old slab of diamond. How
big is this city? A solid slab of diamond. It's
not diamonds. Diamond. All right. He said the second layer is a
solid slab of sapphire. That's a beautiful stone, isn't
it? The third layer is a solid slab of chalcedony. I don't know
what all these colors are, but that one is supposed to resemble
copper. It has a copper look to it, a
big solid slab of copper. The fourth foundation is a solid
green emerald. The fifth foundation is solid
onyx, sardonyx. The sixth foundation
is a ruby, a blood red ruby, sardius. The seventh foundation
is solid gold, chrysolite. And we can imagine what these
layers represent. What do you think a ruby represents?
What do you think blood red represents? What do you think gold represents? The 8th foundation is Beryl,
the 9th foundation is Topaz, the 10th foundation is Chrysoprisus,
the 11th is Jason, and the 12th is an Amethyst. Now here's all
I can tell you about the things which God has prepared for us,
to put it in terms that we can understand. And I want to stress
that, just to put it in terms we can understand. That's the
ugly part. There's nothing ugly in glory. But just so our minds could understand
some glimpse of what God has prepared for those that love
Him, that's the part you cover up. That's the part you don't
even want people to see. After that, it becomes indescribably
beautiful and glorious. Our Lord said, Rejoice. Rejoice. He told his apostles,
Rejoice because your names are written in heaven. Rejoice because he has revealed
all these things to us. Rejoice because his mercy endureth
forever. and rejoice because of everything
He has prepared for those that love Him. Everything. Now I just
want to close with this. Turn with me to Psalm 47. I've always loved this psalm
and loved this one verse. Just imagine the rejoicing when
the Lord is finally presented to His people. The marriage supper
of the Lamb. The announcement goes out, I
now give to you the Lord Jesus Christ. Alright, Psalm 47 verse
1 says, Oh clap your hands, all ye people, shout unto God with
the voice of triumph. Down here, none of us want to
draw attention to ourselves. I wouldn't do that in a service
right now because I would never want to distract from anybody
looking to Christ. But one of these days, After
all hindrances are going to be removed, can you imagine this
great audience of believers clapping their hands for him, cheering
for him, rejoicing over him? Everything he's done, the thunder
of the clap. Let's keep our eyes on that.
Let's keep our eyes on that. I'm telling you, this is not
it. It's coming. It's coming. Hang on. We think, well, my life's
almost over. Our lives haven't started yet.
And once they start, there's no end. Well, the glory days
are gone. I'm over the hill now. We haven't
even begun. We haven't even started yet.
Let's keep our eyes on the Christ that saved us and let's keep
our eyes on what he saved us to. Glory with him. And let's not let this world
get us down in the process. It's so easy to do. But let's
rejoice, if the Lord will allow us to, let's rejoice in everything
Christ has done for us. Lord, keep us right there. Keep me right there until this
whole thing's over. Let me just rejoice in what Christ
has done for me. I know we don't normally close
the service this way, but I want to sing a couple of verses of
marching to Zion. Let's all stand together.