Christian Living

TO REJOICE IS A CHOICE

by GLENN PEASE
02/08/23
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Paul is saying that we always have a choice as to how we face life. He is saying we even have this choice when life is filled with problems and suffering of all kinds. We always have the choice to rejoice, and he says it again to make the point, it is possible at all times. Paul knew it was possible because he did it. He had the choice to be full of bitterness and frustration because of all the enemies he had to endure. He was persecuited and put into prison and had good reason to be a complainer, but all we read of his testamony is that he was a man of joy who was ever rejoicing. In 2 Corinthians 6:10 we read this New Living Translatio-"sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything." Talk about an optimist He was living with heart ache, living in poverity, owning nothing, and yet always joyful. It was becaus he had the choice to rejoice in the Lord always, and he made that his choice. He knew it could be done because he did it and he wants all believers to make that same choice. He was a man in prison when he wrote this letter to the Philippians and he uses the word joy 16 times, making it the most joyful book of the bible. It was not his circumstances but his choice that made him the joyful man he was.

He chose to focus his mind on the positive in a negative world. He wrote in Philippians 4:8, “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise” In other words, Paul had no news stations to fill his mind with all the oppisites of this positive list. Even so, Paul still had the choice to focus on all the bad news of his dsy, buit he chose instesd to focus on the mind of Christ and all the good news in God's Word. We all have this same choice.

If we focus on the full natue of the trinity we discover that each Person of the Godhead is a person of joy.We read this of the Father, “The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing” (Zeph. 3:17). We read this of the Son, " “Thou (Christ) hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows” (Heb. 1:9) And we all know tht one of the fruits of the Spirit is joy. Joy is a part of God's nature, and He expects it to be a part of the nature of His children. He made this clear to His Old Testamen people. Pastor David Mathis put this list together, "For one, joy is commanded all over the Bible. It was commanded of God’s first-covenant people, Israel, perhaps especially in the Psalms. “Let Israel be glad in his Maker; let the children of Zion rejoice in their King!” (Psalm 149:2). “Let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad” (Psalm 14:7). “Rejoice in the Lord” (Psalm 97:12). “Serve the Lord with gladness” (Psalm 100:2). “Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!” (Psalm 32:11). With literally hundreds more instances throughout the Old Testament."

We always want to know what God's will is, and all through the Bible He makes it clear that it is His will that you be a person of joy. You live in God's will when you live in joy.“Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Psa. 16:11). “.. and these thing I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves” (John 17:13). God is not waiting to give us His joy in heaven. He wants us to enjoy it now in time. His will is that we be joyful now and always. He makes that kind of life possible every day by making joy a choice every day. Habakkuk made this choice and wrote, “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation” (Hab. 3:17, 18). You say you are having a bad day, but you can still say I will rejoice in the Lord, for joy is always a choice. Paul did not deny the reality of the negatives of life. He just made it clear that joy is always a choice even when we are suffereing. "Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.." are his worde in 2 Corinthians 6:10." No matter how sad you are about what is going on in your life, you always have the choice of being glad in the Lord. “You shall rejoice in all the good that the Lord your God has given to you” (Deuteronomy 26:11). "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. [Psalm 118:24] We know we can make these joyful choices because they are God's will."REJOICE always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. AMEN!" (1 Thess. 5:16–18

In his book To Laugh Again, Chuck Swindoll says, “I know of no greater need today than the need for joy. Unexplainable, contagious joy." John Ankerberg, who made this quote, goes on to list three choices we can make to live in joy.

"People who please God by obeying God are joyful (John 15:9).
People who please God by loving God/others are joyful (John 15:10, 14)
People who please God by being grateful are joyful (1 Thess. 5:16-18)."
In other words, make God happy with obedience, love and gratitude, and He wiil make you happy in joy. The point is, these are all choices we can freely make. Joy is not in circumstances but in choices.
Spurgeon wrote, "Therefore, let us be thankful, let us be joyful in the Lord. I count it one of the wisest things that, by rejoicing in the Lord, we commence our heaven here below. It is possible so to do, it is profitable so to do, and we are commanded so to do."

Spurgeon probebly has more sermons on joy than any man in history, but he is also realistic in making it often a battle to make the choice to be joyful. He wrote, " None of us, I suppose, are so perfectly happy as to be without some external trials, and our joy will, therefore, need to be looked after lest these water-floods should come in and quench it. We shall need indeed to cry to Him, who alone can keep the flame burning, to trim our lamps, and supply them with fresh oil. I suppose, too, that you have that within which makes you feel that it is no easy matter to maintain perpetual joy. If you have not, I have. Sometimes there will come deep depressions of heart—you can scarcely tell why or wherefore. That strong wing on which once you could mount as an eagle, will seem to flap the air in vain. That heart of yours which once flew upwards as the lark rising from amidst the dew, will lie cold and heavy as a stone on the earth. You will find it hard, indeed, to rejoice. Besetting sins, too, will cripple your holy mirth so that when, like David before the ark, you, too, would dance for very joy, internal corruptions will make it almost impossible.Beloved, it is not easy to fight evil in our own souls and to sing at the same time. Christian soldiers we know, ought to do it and march to battle with songs of triumph, nerving their spirits to deeds of desperate valor, but oh! how often the garment, rolled in dust and blood, compels us to stay for a while the shout of certain victory."

The Spurgeon goes on to write, "Let us walk prayerfully, let us walk carefully, that so we may possess unbroken peace and joy to the full. Let none of us sit down in misery and be content to be there. There is such a thing as becoming habituated to melancholy. My own tendency is sometimes to get into that state of mind, but by the graceof God, I shake it off for I know it will not do. If we once begin to give way to this foolishness, we shall soon forge chains for ourselves that we cannot easily break. Take down your harp from the willow, believer. Do not let your fingers neglect the well-known strings. Come, let us be happy and joyful! If we have looked sad for a while, let us now be brightened by thoughts of Christ. At any rate, let us not be satisfied until we have shaken off this lethargy and misery, and have once again come into the proper and healthy state in which a child of God should ever be found, namely, a state of spiritual joy. "

In this long quote we see that choosing joy is not always easy, but we see also that it is still a choice we can make even when we are down and depressed. There is no time in life where we are to submit to being joyless. Even in the deepest deph of darkness we are to gaze on Jesus, the light of the world, and rejoice in the joy He has made possible for us. Billy Bray was saved from a life of druken behavior and in gratitude he once said, “I would rather be in Hell with Jesus than in Heaven without Jesus. For Hell with Jesus would seem just like Heaven to me and Heaven without Jesus would seem just like Hell to me.” It is in the power of thankfulness and love to have this level of joy in Jesus. We always have the choice to rejoice.

Solomon was wise enough to know that we need medicine in this world of so much sickness, and so he wrote, "A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." He knew the negative realities of life, but he also knew the cure, and joy in the heart was that cure. There is no better medicine for what ails you than the medicine of joy. That is why the Great Physician is always giving it as a prescriptian. He says choose joy for the healthest and happiest of lives. The 72 disciples He sent out came back so filled with joy because the demons submitted to them in the name of Jesus, but Jesus said, " However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” This is one of His most powerful pills for our spiritual health. Choose to rejoice in the promise of your name being written in heaven, and all of the other promises in the Bible.

God has given us His Word to aid us in making it our choice to rejoice. F B Meyer wrote, "Beloved, it is not enough to read the Word or receive the Word as others expound it, but we must also rejoice in the Word as the psalmist who wrote "I rejoice at Your word as one who finds great treasure." (Psalm 119:162) "Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who finds great delight in his commands' (Ps. 112:1) "But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night' (Psalm 1:2). You need a foundation on which to build an attitue of perpetual joy, and you find that foundation in the Bible. You find it there because Jesus is there urging you to make joy your choice. and promising His Holy Spirit to make that choice possible.

Let me share some quotes from godly writer who want to impress us as to just how important it is that we choose joy. One writes, "I want you to notice, dear friends, that this rejoicing is commanded. It is not a matter that is left to your option; it is not set before you as a desirable thing which you can do without, but it is a positive precept of the Holy Spirit to all who are in the Lord: “Rejoice in the Lord alway.” We ought to obey this precept because joy in the Lord makes us like God. He is the happy God; ineffable bliss is the atmosphere in which he lives, and he would have his people to be happy. Let the devotees of Baal cut themselves with knives and lancets, and make hideous outcries if they will; but the servants of Jehovah must not even mar the corners of their beard. Even if they fast, they shall anoint their head, and wash their face, that they appear not unto men to fast, for a joyous God desires a joyous people." Mr. Moody says, "I never knew a case where God used a discouraged man or woman to accomplish any great thing for him. Let a minister go into the pulpit in a discouraged state of mind, and it becomes contagious: it will soon reach the pews, and the whole church will be discouraged. So with a Sabbath-school teacher: I never knew a worker of any kind who was full of discouragement, and who met with great success in the Lord's work. It seems as if G6d cannot make large use of such men."

We need to grasp just how importent joy is in God's revelation. I quote pastor David Dykes- "Joy appears 158 times and “rejoice” appears another 198 times. In the Old Testament there are 27 different colorful words to describe joy. Some of the basic meanings are to “run around with delight;” “to shine like the brightness of the son;” God is trying hard to make it a very important issue for His children to think on and practice. We need to choose joy as a vital part of God's will for our lives. Pastor Dykes goes on to quote a couple of great Christian authors on this subject, "Joy isn’t happiness. It’s so much more. Let me give you a couple of quotes from some spiritual giants in my life. Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade wrote: “Joy is like the sun, always shining even when night falls or clouds cover it. Happiness is like the moon, waxing and waning. Happiness is born in the mind; joy in the heart. Happiness comes from humans; joy comes only from God.” Dr. Adrian Rogers wrote: “Happiness is like cosmetics; Joy is like character. Happiness comes from outside circumstances; Joy comes from within. Happiness meets surface needs; Joy meets your deepest needs. In times of suffering, happiness usually evaporates and disappears; but joy often intensifies in times of suffering.” The point is this, we need to rise above the mere happiness of circumstances and choose the joy we can have in Jesus, the Lord of joy, and experience a taste of heaven before we get there. It is a choice to rejoice, so do it always, pleasing God, youreself, and all those around you.