If you'll turn back with me to
Philippians chapter 3. I want to preach from verses
1 through 9. And the title of the message this
morning is, Rejoice in the Lord. True believers rejoice in Jesus
Christ. That's what He tells us here
in these verses. The true circumcision. Those
who are the elect of God, those who have been called out of darkness,
those who have been regenerated by His Spirit, they rejoice in
Christ Jesus. They don't rejoice at times. They rejoice. They rejoice. Believers are men and women chosen
of God out of the world When we talk about believers, we're
not just talking about people who say, I'm a believer. These
believers have been chosen of God out of the world. They've
been stripped of all their hopes, all their worldly hopes, all
their religious hopes, all of their rights. They no longer
come to God claiming any kind of right. We're in the name it and claim
it generation today. That's what men do. I claim this
and I claim that. Believers don't do that. They
don't do that. They've been stripped of all
their hope, all their religious hopes and their rights. They've
been stripped of their false understandings, their vain understandings
and deceit. They've been stripped of their
pride. and then enabled through the preaching of the gospel to
see the glory of God in the salvation of sinners through the person
and work of Jesus Christ. That's a believer. That's a believer. And from that time, they have
an insatiable appetite for Christ. You cannot have been stripped
of all of these things and then show them Christ and lose your
appetite for Christ. Because that stripping goes on. That's not a one-time thing.
And because it's not a one-time thing, neither is our rejoicing
in Christ. From the time God opens a man's
heart and his eyes and his understanding, He gains an appetite for Christ
which is fed through the reading of his word and the preaching
of the gospel. They are those who forsake not
the assembling of themselves together as the manner of some
is, but they continue on in exhortation and so much the more as they
see that day approaching. This is serious business. I'm
telling you, we're going to go out and meet God. We talk about
it all the time, and we don't think about it like we're supposed
to. And we just kind of put it on the back shelf, put it over
here with something else. And all of a sudden, that doctor
comes in, and he's doing this. And boy, I mean, in a short time,
what seems like an instant, you're going out to meet God. The believer's souls do not loathe
God's heavenly bread, nor do they ever tire of hearing it.
You ever get tired of hearing the grace of God? Oh, I never
do. I don't care who's talking about
it. I wanna hear it. I wanna hear it. You wouldn't
get tired if you discovered an inheritance by some multi-billionaire
and he's left you all of these things and this wheel looks like
a Sears catalog and somebody's standing up there reading it.
You wouldn't get tired. You wouldn't get tired. You'd want to know
what's on page three, wouldn't you? And as soon as you got that,
you'd want to know what's on page four. We gather together because we
are of the common faith. I don't know anything of this
business about believing all these different things and being
of one faith. I don't get that at all. We're of the common faith. One
faith, that's what the scripture said, isn't it? One faith. We're of common calling. We've
all been called by the same spirit, called by the same gospel, called
by the same God. We're a common purpose. God saved
us for His glory. He's purposed in us somehow to
magnify His grace and His glory. And we're of a common hope. Our hope's not complex to tell. Our hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's my hope. And it's a good
hope through grace. And we're brothers and sisters
in Christ. And long after our blood relatives
are gone, we shall, by the grace of God, be together with Christ
for all eternity. Believers believe in the truth
of salvation by God in Christ. Peter puts it this way. He's
speaking of the saving work of Christ, and it says, who by Him
do believe in God that raised Him from the dead and gave Him
glory, that your faith and your hope might be in God. Our faith and hope is in God.
Believers bow before God's Christ, who is the express image of God,
and we obey His commands being in submission to Him. And under
His designated authority, we bow to Him. In Romans 6.16 it
says, To whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, His servants
you are to whom you obey. And believers submit to His gospel. They submit to His pastors and
evangelists. They submit to His ordinances. We're commanded to confess him
in believer's baptism if we believe. And we have no right to say,
I believe, and reject his baptism, do we? Nuh-uh. That's why they
call it believer's baptism. And we're also commanded to partake
of the Lord's table. There's been times when I, partook
of the Lord's table trembling. Trembling. But then I came to
know that the truth of that table is that this is His body which
was broken for me. And this is the blood of that
everlasting covenant. This is the blood of the New
Testament. And I don't fear to drink it
now. I don't fear to eat that bread now. Believers are, according to Philippians
3.3, those who worship God in the Spirit. What's that mean?
Well, it means in the power of the Spirit, for one. Natural
man, he don't worship God. If any man worships God, he worships
Him in the Spirit. That's the only way you can worship
Him. That's the only way you can know Him. They worship God in the spirit,
they rejoice in Christ Jesus, and they have no confidence in
the flesh. And Paul calls these brethren,
and so they are in Christ, and they all together, in the same
one and in the same things, rejoice. They rejoice. Pastor, are you saying that believers
are all giddy all the time and they go around smiling all the
time and they're just totally unaffected? I've seen religious
people act that way. You know, hit their finger with
a hammer and go, well, praise the Lord. That's not what I said
when I hit mine. No, they're not all giddy and
they don't go around smiling all the time. Not at all. But nothing that goes on in our
lives can change or destroy or even hinder our hope in Christ. I can rejoice in Christ when
I mourn everything that's going on around me. I can rejoice in
Him. Huh? Look at Job. Everything the man
had, he was the richest man in the East. He was blessed with
children. He was blessed with houses. He was blessed with lands. possessions. It was all taken
from him just overnight. And he was a man of good health
and that was taken from him. Now he sits out where they burnt
the garbage and he's sitting out in those ashes with a piece
of glass and he's scraping the bowls on himself. And his wife
comes along. the one in this world, his beloved
helpmate, the one who was by his side in all these things.
And now she looks at him and said, why don't you just curse
God and die? Can you picture him running around
saying, well, praise the Lord. No, no, that's not what he did. Not what he did, but here's what
he did do. He said, the Lord giveth. and
the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Nothing
can separate our rejoicing in Christ because it can't take
away our hope in him and that's what we rejoice over. There are gonna be a lot of folks
bow down at his feet in judgment who don't rejoice in him. They're
gonna hear him say, depart from me you workers of iniquity, I
never knew you. But believers have hope in Him. We have hope that we're justified
by God in Him, that our sins have been put away, that we have
a righteousness acceptable of God. And nothing can change or destroy
or even hinder our hope in Christ. I know Richard did, and I lost
my wife to cancer. And man, she went from being
able to sit and talk to me to comatose in just a few short
weeks. We married almost 48 years, and
nearly everything technical in my ministry she did for me, and
my heart broken for her. But it doesn't affect my hope.
It doesn't affect my hope in Christ. Anything, it just made
me rejoice more. She won't have to suffer anymore.
She's complete. One preacher said this of his
wife that died, she's plumb well now. Yeah, she's well. My life is hid with God in Christ
and Christ is the basis of my hope and nothing changes that.
It doesn't even touch my rejoicing any. Paul, he's writing this letter
from prison. And he said, finally, brethren,
rejoice. But what I want to do this morning
is what Paul was doing in this epistle. He said, to say the
same things to you again is not a grievous task for me, and it's
good and it's safe for you. So why do believers rejoice? What enables him, even in times
of pain and grief, to rejoice? Let me just give you four or
five things to refresh your memories. Paul said you'll be saved if
you keep in memory what I preached unto you, otherwise you believed
in vain. So let me just stir up your memories
a little bit. How do we keep these things in
memory? By constantly hearing the gospel. That's how you keep
them in memory. So what is the basis of our rejoicing? Well, it begins with a understanding,
a godly understanding, a revelation of the Spirit of God in the Word
of God, of our sinful self, our fallen head, Adam, and the cause,
the curse of his posterity and the total depravity of our nature. That's where it begins. You're
not gonna understand anything till God makes you understand
who you are and what you are. You'll have no reason to seek
the Lord until you learn that. And you're gonna learn that if
you're one of His. When the Spirit of God has come,
He's gonna do three things. The first of those three things
is convince you of sin. that you are seeing seeing that
when the watermelon you stole that they're out of farmer browns
patch seeing is what you are by nature everything we do is
saying everything we think you see and everything we say you
see the lord says over and i say
a chapter one he said they came before him who ordered them to
come before him god be Well, they came there raising
holy hands. Who told them to do that? The Lord did. He said it was obnoxious to me. Why? Because Christ wasn't in
it. Christ wasn't in it. It was just
a bunch of religious rituals. First thing He's going to do
is teach us who we are. He's going to teach us who we
are. Now many men know and acknowledge
the doctrine, but the doctrine is not mixed with faith in them
that hear it. Let me quote you something from
over here in Hebrews chapter 4. You might want to read through
that chapter, chapter 3 and chapter 4. over there in Hebrew. But let me just quote a passage
to you. Hebrews 4 verse 2. For unto us was the gospel preached
as well as unto them. He's talking about those unbelieving
rebels back there in the wilderness. The gospel was preached to them,
same way it was preached to us. But the word preached did not
profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard
it. It's not enough to hear it. God demands that we believe it,
that we rest our souls in it. Well, how do I know if I believe
the truth? When you believe a truth, you
act on it. You don't believe it till you
act on it. You can say, well, I believe in repentance. Not
if you don't repent. You believe in repentance when
you repent. Those who hear it believe it,
and their actions show that they believe it. When a person hears
and believes God's testimony about his falling condition,
he'll mourn over it. He'll accept it as a fact. He'll
mourn over it. He'll seek a cure for it. He'll
become desperate to find relief from it. He sees that his whole
life is governed by it. All of his thoughts and all of
his words and all of his feelings and everything, it's all affected
by what he is by nature. He's a sinner. He's no longer satisfied to walk
in that mess. He's no longer satisfied to go
on the way things are. He needs relief. He needs help. That man'll travel any distance,
just like Naaman did. Just like Naaman did. He'll hear
God's servant when God sends him, same way the Ethiopian eunuch
did. You know, that eunuch had been
to Jerusalem. He'd heard the high priest. He'd
heard the prophets. He heard the scriptures read.
He went to Jerusalem. He went through all of those
feast days. hoping to learn something about
God, and he came away as ignorant as he was when he went. And he
was still reading the scriptures, trying to get some answers, trying
to get some information, trying to find out what the truth is.
And along comes this guy, he don't have on a priest gown,
he doesn't have on anything, he's been traveling now for days
and Here he is out here in the middle of the wilderness and
he's running along and he looks up and he said, hey bud, do you
understand what you're reading? Would you listen to him? A natural
man wouldn't. But a seeking man will. He said,
how can I understand it except some man declare it unto me?
And he invited him up into his chariot. And he preached to him. He'll hear God's servant when
God sends him. just like the Ethiopian Union.
When he finds out what he is, he'll hate what he is. A right
knowledge of self and sin shuts a man's mouth. He quits talking,
he quits looking for, he quits finding excuses. Yeah, but what
about? Oh, he'll lose all of his what
abouts. God convinces him of sin, convinces him of his ignorance. convinces him of the ease with
which satan has deceived him and deceives the whole world.
A right knowledge of self and sin shuts a man's mouth and takes
away all of his excuses. It leaves him getting more and
more on God's side with his own condemnation. Isn't that what
David prayed? David said, against thee and
thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. Why would
he say such a thing? Well, he tells you, that thou
mightest be justified when thou speakest, and clear when thou
judgest. He said, God's right. When I tell people what they
are, they say, well, that can't be. They say, well, that don't
seem right. Huh? Not what David said. He said that thou mayest be clear
when thou judgest. cleared of all, no faults, no
faults. And there's only one plea for
a man who knows what he is by nature and by choice and practice,
and that's guilty. Lord have mercy on me, the sinner. Oh, how the sinner rejoices,
huh? The rebel, he despises that doctrine
of total depravity. He won't have it. You can't sell
it to him. He's not buying it. He's not
going to bow to it. He's not going to submit to it,
and he's not going to act on it. But that man who believes it,
he rejoices in it. You rejoice that you're a sinner?
No, I rejoice that God showed me what I am. So I quit looking
to myself and hoping in myself and trying to build something
in myself and waiting on my own will to do something for me and
I'll start looking to Christ. And then secondly, the sinner
rejoices in the sweet knowledge of Christ, the Son of God, by
whom God has made provision for chosen sinners. Oh, what a sweet
knowledge it is when a man begins to hear something of a sovereign
savior. One who is able to save him to
the uttermost. All those that come unto God
by him. Before sin entered into this
world by Adam, Christ entered into a covenant union with all
those chosen and blessed of the Father before the foundation
of the world. That's what the scripture says.
predestinated us under the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
himself according to the good pleasure of his will. He did
all that before there was a world created. He did all of that before
he ever breathed life into a single man. Before any man had done any good
or evil that the purpose of God according to election might stand.
This is what our Lord said about Jacob and Esau. He said, Jacob
if I loved, Esau if I hated. And the elder is going to serve
the younger. Why do you do that? That the
purpose of God according to election might stand. Has it stood? It has. Will it stand? It will. Paul said in Romans 11 verse
7, Israel hath not obtained that which it seeketh for, but election
hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded. Now that's just
the truth. If God had not made provision
for some to be saved in Christ, creation would have been a useless
act. He would have destroyed this
world. He'd have burned it into cinders the minute Adam sinned. There'd been no need to go on. Well, why did he go on? Because he appointed his son
the savior of some. That's why. And he tolerates
the rest and uses the rest to that end. In Romans 8, 19 it
said, the earnest expectation of creation. Creation itself
waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. And that's
the only reason it continues on. It doesn't continue on because
some politician got up and started talking about greenhouse gases.
It continues on because God has a people that he's gonna save
for the glory of his name. Creation waits on it, and it's
the earnest expectation of creation, and it waits for the manifestation
of the sons of God. For creation was made subject
to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who subjected
the same in hope. An election, while it might rile
the rebels and offend the proud, it's sweet music in the ears
of seeking sinners. God's not going to let everybody
perish. I tried to tell you, and I didn't do a very good job
in 2 Thessalonians 2, but antichrist religion, like a flooded river,
is just washing this world, sucking this world right into it. And
if you could, just picture God standing above all that and reaching
down and saying, you can't have that one. That one's mine. And you can't have that one either.
That one's mine. Well, how'd he get to be yours?
I chose him before the world was. Well, what right have you
got to pluck him out of our midst? Christ died for him. Every stipulation of that eternal
covenant of grace was kept by our Lord Jesus Christ to perfection. I see humanity walking the course
of this fallen world, walking according to the prince of the
power of the air, the spirit which now worketh in the children
of disobedience. And I see them all living out
their days in the lust of their flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and are by nature the children
of wrath, even as others. But God, God who is rich in mercy
and for His great love wherewith He loved us, Even when we were
dead in sins, quickened us together with Christ. Raised us up together
with Him and made us sit together with Him in heavenly places. And then he puts this over in
parenthesis. By grace, ye are saved. And I might wrestle over my election
of God, but I do not wrestle over his election of a people.
Scripture's perfectly clear about that. You just have to take the
scriptures and water them up and throw them away to deny election. God chose a people in Christ,
and he made full provision for them and his son, and this is
a great source of rejoicing to the believer. Don't you rejoice
over God's election? What if God had not chosen you?
You would never have chosen him. That's what he said to his own
disciples. He said, you've not chosen me, I chose you. And there's nothing outside of Christ
for the believer to cling to. His will's biased by his fallen
nature and the lies of false religion. His righteousness is
nothing but filthy rags. No fear of God before his eyes.
I tell you what, Christ is all to him. Because God showed him
what he is, and then he showed him who his son is. And boy,
in the light of our fallen depravity, and we look at the perfection
of Christ, oh my soul, that's sweet music to the believer.
Sweet music to his ears. Full provision has been made
in Christ. In him we have redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of his grace. We've been predestinated to the
adoption of children by Him, accepted in the blood. And God
hath made Him to be unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. God has made full provision for
His elect in Christ, and we rejoice in it. And then thirdly, believers
rejoice because the means ordained of God to call us out of darkness
has been and is now effectual to the saving of our souls. It
wasn't a general call. It was a particular call. And
it was an effectual call. When he called, we came. Zacchaeus,
come down. Did Zacchaeus stay up in the
tree? He come down, didn't he? Oh, my soul. Leave your boats,
follow me. I'll make you fishers of men.
That's all they ever knew was boats. Boats and fishing, that's
all they ever knew. Follow me. Our election is made known by
the hearing of the gospel and the power and presence of the
Holy Ghost. Somebody said to me the other
day, and I'm not picking on him, I'm picking on myself for answering
him without thinking. But they said, we don't believe
you have to be under the active preaching of the gospel to be
saved. We believe that we can recall
what has been preached to us on other occasions. And I didn't
see anything wrong with it at the time, and so I agree. I didn't really know how to answer
him, but I thought about it a little bit, But then the other day, as I
was studying this message, I got to thinking a little bit. It
doesn't really matter what I think. Huh? What's it matter what I think? It doesn't matter what I think.
It doesn't matter whether I agree with it or I disagree with it.
What counts is what we read in the Word of God. Now I want you
to find me an example anywhere in the New Testament, anywhere
after Christ ascended into glory, chose his preachers and evangelists
and sent them out to preach. I want you to show me one example
anywhere in there where any man recalled what was preached to
him and was saved. You can't find one. Every time
It was under the active preaching of the gospel. There he died. So it really don't matter what
I think, does it? Matters what he says. Matters what he says. And I fear all too often we want
to take our personal experiences and interpret the word of God
with them, and it's dangerous. Don't do that. Don't do that.
May God be true and every man a liar. And I'll tell you something
else. It's not our intellect that brings
faith to the mind and heart, but the Spirit of God teaching
us and revealing to us through His Word and through the Gospel. That's the benefit. And so what
is the benefit of lapsed time? What benefit is that? There's
no benefit at all. No benefit at all. Now I'm not going to denounce
what the man said, I just can't find it in example or command
in the scriptures. And I'm not going to buy it till
I do. I'm just not going to do it. We talk about rejoicing. I can
still remember having the truth for the first time and knowing
this was the true gospel. And those lies that I've been
hearing all my life, exposed by the truth, I can still remember
hearing that and rejoicing in what I was hearing. Oh, I tell
you, it was sweet music to my soul to hear it. And still we rejoice. I hope
that some of you sitting here this morning are rejoicing in
what you're hearing. We rejoice in the means God has
ordained to call us out of darkness and to give us eternal life.
And then fourthly, believers rejoice for the means whereby
they're fed and educated and grounded and preserved to life
eternal. They all recognize their need
to eat spiritual food. They all acknowledge their need
to be exhorted and corrected and instructed in righteousness. David said this. This was a sweet
psalmist of Israel. This was a prophet of God. This
was a man after God's own heart. He said, boy, he said, I was
glad when they said unto me, let's go up to the house of the
Lord. It's time to worship. He said, I was glad. I was glad. I was looking forward to it.
My mom fixed chicken every Sunday. Far back as I can remember, that's
what we had on Sundays. We had fried chicken. And I tell
you, by the time Sunday got there, I was pacing the floor. I was
ready for fried chicken. I was tired of beans and tired
of liver and all that other stuff. I wanted fried chicken. I never
did get tired of it. You get tired of the gospel?
Boy, I don't. You get tired of worship? Oh,
boy, I don't. I feel horrible when I stay home. We all recognize and acknowledge
our need to be exhorted. And what about you and I? Are
we glad as the Lord's Day approaches? Do we look forward to it? Are
we excited and anxious to be gathered together? Maybe God
will speak. Maybe God will speak. He spoke
to me. He spoke to me. If He can speak
to me, He can speak to you. If He can give this old sinner
life, He can give anybody life. Oh, I tell you believers are,
they're anxious and excited. They rejoice that God has not
given them over to strong delusion. But He's ordained a means for
them to be fed in this present evil world. Think about the power and authority
which is actively engaged right now to save your soul. Think
about it. Christ is at the right hand of
God making intercession for the believer. Right now, actively
engaged in it. His presence by the Father intercedes
for us. His providence being ordered
and arranged so that you can hear. laying up on the heart
i don't know it's so involved it boggles my mind what god does
and and it is constantly engaged in uh... twenty-four seven all
around this world calling out his elect the angels of god stand before
your father waiting his command on your behalf. The providence
of God arranged in perfect order for your good in His glory. The
pen in the hand and the thought in the mind of all God's ambassadors. And even to the preparation of
the hearts of men and the answer of their tongues. All of these
things actively engaged every day. Oh, he tells us over here in
Philippians 4 verse 19, He said, my God shall supply all your
need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Every need, not you want, your
need. Every hair of your head numbered,
every sparrow's end ordained so that we can understand just
a little bit of how much love God has for his children. and
how much constant care, how alert he is, and his eyes are over
the righteous all the time. We rejoice in the means God has
ordained for our daily sustenance and preservation. And then lastly,
believers rejoice in God himself. God himself. When we talk about
God, we often use his attributes to describe who he is, and we
think on him in that way. God is love. My sister once said
to me, she's dead now, she said, I don't believe a good
God would send anybody to hell. And I said, a good God wouldn't,
but a just God would. a righteous God would. God will. God will. God is love, and God is merciful,
and God is long-suffering and kind, and God is immutable. He's
unchangeable. God is sovereign. He's omnipotent. He's all-knowing. God is just
and righteous. God is good, and God is eternal,
and God is holy. That's who God is. Now the believer, how does he
rejoice in God? Well, he sees all God's attributes
engaged for the salvation of his soul, and therefore he rejoices
in God. God's justice, you ought to rejoice
in God's justice, David, he justified you. He justified, who's gonna
condemn you? Who's going to lay anything to
the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. It's
Christ that died. I can rejoice in God's justice
because His justice has justified me. It's been perfectly satisfied
in Christ. I can rejoice in His righteousness
because I'm clothed in His righteousness in Christ. What is it that I can't rejoice?
I can rejoice in God's wrath because His wrath has been exhausted
on the Son of God, my subject. We rejoice in God and all of
His attributes, all of His whole character, the person of God
Himself, everything that makes God God is engaged to save the
soul of the sinner. And so we rejoice in God. Huh? We rejoice in Him. Divine wisdom has opened the
way. God's immutability has fixed
it. His omnipotence orders it. His grace and mercy gives it
a basis. His justice and righteousness
makes it acceptable. And God's love seals it forever.
And God's holiness gives it a harmony so that our God is both just
and justifier. God has engaged the whole of
His character in the salvation of His people, and the more we
know it, the more we rejoice in it. And to know Him, to know
Him, is eternal life. And so I say with Paul in our
text, finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. Huh? Oh, my soul,
we have every reason to rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord,
and I tell you, if He ever opens your heart and mind to see it,
that's what you'll rejoice in, and you won't find any rejoicing
in anything else. They can talk about free will,
and I'll walk in, and church adjoining, all they want to.
It just rolls off me like water off a duck's back. I rejoice
in God our Savior. And I can rejoice in Him no matter
what. No matter what. May the Lord
make it so as we have spoken on His behalf here this morning. Father, take Your Word this morning,
Your Gospel, the truth of Your Gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ,
and make Him our rejoicing. Cause our minds to think on Him
throughout the day, throughout the week, and especially as we
gather together to hear His Word. Enable us to rejoice in Him and
to continue rejoicing. We ask it for Christ's sake.