Passage: Philippians 4:4

The Big Idea

“Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!” God doesn’t just allow us to be happy; He commands us to find our joy in Him, and His commands come with His enabling. Our problem isn’t that we want happiness too much, but that we settle for too little. Jesus is our “happy thought,” the light we look at instead of the darkness. Joy in the Lord grows as we believe He is willing to give it, meditate on His Word and take our thoughts captive. Anything else we delight in is a counterfeit, and we belong to Him like a bride to her husband.

What Makes You Happy?

Close your eyes for a moment and picture yourself with a huge smile: a joy you can’t contain. Maybe a fist pump or a cheer. Maybe a deep, satisfied breath. I won’t ask what produced that happiness.

But God sees it. He knows it. And He is fiercely jealous for it.

In the movie Hook, a grown-up Peter Pan needs to fly, and the only way the pixie dust will work is if he thinks a happy thought. He tries and tries but can’t find one. Then he finds it: his children. And he flies.

There’s a parallel to what Paul tells us here.

Rejoice in the Lord (4:4)

Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!

What does it mean to rejoice in the Lord?

The Westminster Shorter Catechism begins: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.”

It links two ideas: glorifying God and enjoying Him.
Imagine the opposite: someone who serves God but resents Him and doesn’t enjoy Him at all.
That doesn’t glorify God. It doesn’t honor Him. It’s a sad imitation. It’s slavery.
God calls us to serve Him with joy (Psalm 100:2), sincerely thankful and glad for who He is and what He’s done.
“How can He command me to feel happy?” We’re mistaken if we think joy is only a feeling. It’s much more than that.
This is what the Holy Spirit wants to teach us: how to rejoice in the Lord.
God’s commands come with His enabling. So by His grace, we can do this, today and forever.
The joy of the LORD is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10).

The Heidelberg Catechism, written over four hundred years ago, opens by asking what our only comfort is in life and death, and then organizes everything around three things we need to know to live and die in that comfort:

How great our sin and misery are.
How we are set free from all our sins and misery, through Jesus Christ, who loved us and died for us.
How to be thankful to God for such deliverance, from the heart.

“But I Can’t Rejoice Right Now”

The number one objection in the hearts of God’s children is this: “I can’t rejoice in the Lord. I know and believe what He did for me, but I have something else going on, something I can’t get over. I’m upset. I’m not happy.”

In other words: “I need something to change before I can be happy with God alone.”

Let me say something that might sound dangerous.

Your problem isn’t that you need to stop wanting happiness and adopt some super-pious, joyless life.
Your problem is that you settle for too little happiness! You’ve only sipped from the cup of joy. You’ve only dipped a toe into the ocean.

What did Jesus do for you?

However you answer, you’re only scratching the surface. You’re on day one of a million-year course on that one subject!

And learning what He did for you brings joy:

He took our punishment.
He forgave us.
He adopted us.
He rescued us.
He came after us while we were running away.
And on and on, forever!

“OK, but how does that relate to my life today? I’m worried. I’m disappointed. I’m broke. I’m angry. I feel like a failure.”

Spurgeon wrote, “The cure for care is joy in the Lord.” You won’t be able to keep fretting or wearing yourself out with anxiety “if the Lord will but fill you with his joy.” Satisfied, even overflowing with delight in God, you’ll say to yourself, “Why are you cast down, O my soul? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him” (Psalm 42:11).

When you rejoice in the Lord, you can question your own soul, and even command it.

You can step back from the chaos and say: “Wait. What am I upset about? What am I stressed about? I have hope! Jesus is my hope! He has promised love and help, and He has given love and help. Soul, I command you to praise God! Rejoice in Him, because He is your help!”

“But how does Jesus help with this problem, depression, a chronic struggle?”

Paul says: He who didn’t spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, with Him, freely give us all things? (Romans 8:32).

Jesus claims to be the full answer to our misery and sorrow, a true and real Savior.
Jesus is your happy thought. He’s the supernatural help that lets you fly in joy.
Your connection with Him will make you more and more joyful.
You can’t be too happy in the Lord. It’s never a sin to rejoice in Him!
In fact, it’s safe (Philippians 3:1). It guards your heart and mind. It protects you and heals you.

Look at the Light

What does it mean to be happy in God? Not a fake smile. Not foolishly ignoring life’s realities. It’s really thinking about God and what He’s done, and interacting with Him.

If you’re in a dark room with one candle, can you help looking at it? There’s an irresistible pull to look at the only source of light. Whatever else is going on, at least there’s that light.

To rejoice in the Lord is to say, “I will look at the Light of the World instead of the dark!”

Isaiah says: I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul will be joyful in my God, for He has clothed me with garments of salvation and covered me with a robe of righteousness, like a bridegroom in his finery and a bride adorned with her jewels (Isaiah 61:10).

Notice the word for. There’s a reason for the joy.
Yes, there’s darkness. Yes, life is hard. Yes, there’s wrong in the world.
But God! He wrapped me in salvation. He covers me. He makes me right. I won’t be judged for my sin. I’m His bride! Far from being His enemy, I’m His beloved.
He wants nothing but to provide for me, love me and protect me. I believe it, and that truth makes me glad!
What if a bride didn’t believe that about her husband?
Do you believe it?
That’s the problem for many of us. We doubt God is willing or able to fully take care of us, or we think it somehow depends on our performance.
We think God wants us to stay hurt and broken, that He can’t or won’t step in.
That’s a lie! God loves you better than any husband. He will rescue you. He will answer when you call.
Think of how your heart aches to help your hurting, crying child. That’s the smallest taste of God’s heart for you. You’re His child, and He’s a Father who will never fail.

“But my parents were terrible.”

David says that even if my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will take me in (Psalm 27:10).

He knows. Every parent fails in some way. He won’t.
Look to the Light of truth and be healed.
Call out to Him and receive His joy.
Our whole relationship with God centers on this: He will give you what you need for true happiness.
He won’t let you find it anywhere else. He’s jealous about it. He wants to be the One you delight in.

Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4).

His words, not mine!
He wants to meet the deepest needs of your heart: love, meaning, value, security. He provides each one through Jesus.
He promises it!
But often we don’t believe it. So we wallow. We stay stuck. We look inward instead of up.
God doesn’t abandon you to face sorrow alone. He promises to be your help and your joy. (And sometimes His help comes through doctors, counselors and friends. Receive those as His gifts too.)
He comes to all who call. He draws near to all who seek Him.
You can’t receive the joy if you don’t believe He’s willing to give it.

“Pastor, you’re old-fashioned. You don’t understand the stress and complexity we face today. It’s not just one thing. It’s a whole multitude of anxieties.”

If only the Bible had something to say about that…

In the multitude of my anxieties within me, Your comforts delight my soul (Psalm 94:19).

No one has to live in continual sorrow. It’s not God’s heart for you. He’s full of comfort for your soul.
He can delight you, whatever problems you’re facing.

How to Begin

So how do I begin to rejoice in the Lord?

The psalmist says, May my meditation be sweet to Him; I will be glad in the LORD (Psalm 104:34).

There’s a link between biblical meditation and joy.
Spend time in the Word:
not just reading, but reading, thinking, chewing and digesting;
praying about what you’ve read;
listening for the Holy Spirit’s voice in your heart.

Paul has been teaching us how to think throughout this letter, and his most passionate thinking lesson is this one: rejoice in the Lord.

It’s a way of thinking based on what God has done for me, not on what I’m going through right now.

I take my thoughts captive (2 Corinthians 10:5) and run them by this command:

Does this thought rejoice in what God has done? Or is it focused on me or someone else?
If it’s Jesus-centered, I let it run free in my mind.
If it’s self-centered or circumstance-centered, I hold it captive.
Then I go back to God’s Word and replace that thought with one of His promises.

“That sounds tedious. It sounds like I’ll need to keep going back to the Lord for help over and over.”

Yes. That’s grace. A humble, dependent life. It’s the only way.

And it works. Jesus keeps His promises.

Matthew Henry said, “If good men have not a continual feast, it is their own fault.”

The Bride’s Joy

Go back to the exercise at the beginning: that huge smile, that joy you couldn’t contain. God saw it, and He’s jealous for it.

God has prepared a continual feast for you, a joy that never fades, a relationship of complete victory. He’s urging you to believe Him and call out to Him alone. Whatever we rejoice in that isn’t Jesus is a counterfeit.

“Guard your heart,” we tell young people, because we know the danger of giving your heart to the wrong person.

Paul told the Corinthians he felt a godly jealousy for them, because he had promised them to one husband, to present them as a pure bride to Christ. He feared that, as the serpent deceived Eve, their minds would be led astray from simple, pure devotion to Christ (2 Corinthians 11:2-3).

We’d tell a young woman to rejoice in the man she’s engaged to. “Don’t imagine someone else will be better for you or supply what you need. He loves you!”

We’re that bride. We’re promised to Christ. So don’t give your heart’s delight to other lovers.

We do it all the time, and He takes us back again and again. Yet when we chase other loves, we feel the deep sadness of someone who’s been unfaithful. That’s where so much of our sorrow comes from. The alternative to rejoicing in the Lord is spiritual unfaithfulness. This is about love, about marriage. Why do you think God gave us marriage in the first place? So we’d understand the deep love He has for us.

Songwriter Derek Webb captured this in his song “Wedding Dress,” confessing how easily we take Christ’s name like a bride putting on a wedding dress while our hearts still chase money and other loves, and yet we keep running down the aisle back to Him.

Grace Takeaway

What’s your happy thought? Anything other than Jesus will fail you. He alone is your Husband, your Savior, your joy. Call out to Him today. He’s calling to you now. Let go of the doubts and the hurt. You can only hold one thing at a time, so choose Jesus, now and forever. We worship what we take pleasure in. Rejoice in the Lord. Again I say, rejoice! When we delight in Him, He promises to lift us up and feed us with the inheritance He’s given (Isaiah 58:13-14).

For Discussion

What has been the happiest time of your life?
Does your relationship with Jesus feel like a blessing or a burden?
Do you spend more time thinking about what you do or what Jesus did? If each were a stock, which one are you buying most often?
When you fail to trust God, is it because you doubt His ability, His willingness or something else?
If you’ve felt that your parents failed you, has Psalm 27:10 spoken to your heart? What promise do you see there?
Read Psalm 104:34. What do you think meditation is? As a group, come up with a plan for daily meditation on God. What should we avoid?
Read 2 Corinthians 10:4-5. What does it mean to take a thought captive? Why do we need to practice this? What results might we see?
If we don’t trust our own thoughts, what do we trust? How does this relate to Matthew 26:41?
What do Proverbs 28:26, Jeremiah 17:9 and Matthew 26:33 teach about trusting our own thoughts?

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Rejoice in the Lord: Your Happy Thought