Tag Archives: rejoice

Rejoice And Beware!

Bible Study, , ,

REJOICE AND BEWARE!

“Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.

“Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by His Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh – though I myself have reasons for such confidence.” Philippians 3:1-4a.

The Christian life is a life of joy. If anyone had reason to complain, it was Paul. In spite of his loyal and sacrificial service for Jesus, he had gone through the mill at the hands of hostile hoards – from the Romans, despite the fact that he was a Roman citizen – and from the Jews. Nevertheless, the joy that was deep within him sustained him through the hard times. Why?

Paul’s joy did not arise from his circumstances but from his union with Jesus. What he counselled others to be and to do always passed through the laboratory of his own experience. His letters were not only the product of his understanding of the Scriptures, but also the witness to his personal life as a believer in Jesus.

Paul could easily have turned on Jesus. How could his Master, a God of love, allow him to be treated like that? Was he not a faithful and loyal follower? Was he not entitled to a reward for his hard work? Was this the way God treated His children?

This may be the attitude of some today, but we never read of Paul whining about his hardships. On the contrary, he rejoiced in what he suffered and counted it a privilege and an opportunity to put his Master on display. Instead of collapsing in a heap of self-pity, he waited expectantly for the outcome and he was never disappointed.

The very church he was addressing was, in part, the aftermath of an unpleasant incident in Philippi where he and Silas were beaten and imprisoned for delivering a slave girl of demons. Instead of bewailing their fate, they sang and prayed so enthusiastically at midnight that they kept the whole prison awake. And God’s response…an earthquake that shook the prison, freed the prisoners and resulted in the salvation of the jailer and his household.

Paul knew how to rejoice in the Lord and he also knew what rejoicing instead of complaining accomplished. He called it a safeguard. Praise is a safeguard against the wiles of the devil. He delights in luring us into feeling sorry for ourselves and hard-done-by when things go badly for us. If there is one thing that spoils our fellowship with God, it’s self-pity. And what is self-pity? Someone once called it “ingrown eyeballs”!

Rejoicing in the Lord is the antidote. After all, God is still in charge, not matter what happens in life, and He works it all out for our good when we trust Him. When we rejoice in Him and not in our circumstances, we will remain steadfast and unshakeable in spite of what is happening around us because He never changes.

With his counsel to rejoice in the Lord, Paul also issued a warning. Be careful of the “dogs”. Who were they? The very same ones who troubled the Galatians to the point that they were led astray. They were the ones who trailed after Paul and tried to undo his work by insisting that believers in Jesus be circumcised first and keep the Mosaic Law. For Paul they were nothing more than stray dogs, roaming around and opportunistically devouring whoever they could.

“Stay away from them,” urged Paul. The real circumcision party are those who are circumcised in heart, not mutilated in the flesh. The seal of God’s ownership is not in the flesh but in the heart – the presence of God’s Spirit who is the arabon, God’s engagement ring, and the promise of eternal life for those who are marked by the Spirit.

If there is to be any boasting at all, it is not to be about our achievements for Jesus, but about His achievement for us. This is the safest place to boast because it takes the gaze off ourselves and places it where it belongs, on Jesus, the one who did everything that God required for us.

Paul was about to launch into recounting his CV if it was of any value at all in impressing God, so that he could be considered righteous in God’s sight. He had every reason to boast in what he had become in the flesh but it was all to no avail. His best shot fell short and he was doomed unless…

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

From Grief To Joy

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FROM GRIEF TO JOY 

“Jesus went on to say, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then, after a little while you will see me.’  At this, some of His disciples said to one another, ‘What does He mean by saying, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,” and “Because I am going to the Father”?’ They kept asking, ‘What does He mean by “a little while”? We don’t understand what He is saying.'” John 16:17-18 NIV.

As fully aware of His impending suffering and death on the cross as Jesus was, so unaware the disciples were. They had consistently shut their minds to what He had told them was to happen to Him at the hands of the religious leaders. Not even the Passover meal they had just eaten which He had fleshed out to point to His sacrifice as God’s Passover lamb, had alerted them to the ordeal He was shortly to face.

Now the time was almost on Him. No even the darkness of the olive grove could shield Him from the motley army that was gathering in the city to arrest Him and drag Him off to the Sanhedrin for the mockery of a trial. How desperately He wanted to reassure His disciples that His death was a temporary interruption that would issue in very far reaching results for them and for the world.

Had they heeded His words on the many occasions He had told them that He would be killed and would rise again on the third day, what He was now telling them would have been quite easily understood. Going away, as in death, where they would not be able see Him in His human body…and returning to them, as in a resurrection body, where they would once again see Him…for us is all so simple, but for them a complete mystery.

During His earthly ministry they had seen Him raise the dead more than once. Only a few days previously, Lazarus had walked out of the tomb after his body had already begun the process of decay! But He was there in person, doing the miracle by a word or a touch. To understand and believe that He would die and rise again was too much to accept and so His words sounded like nonsense to them.

“Jesus saw that they wanted to ask Him about this, so He said to them, ‘Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’?

“‘Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.'” John 16:19-22 NIV.

The resurrection of Jesus is the hope of every person who believes in Him. For the disciples is was His death that brought them inconsolable grief because they thought it was the end of the road for them. But after the grief came the joy and a joy that would never leave them because their Master was alive and He could never die again.

As human beings in a fallen world, we are all subject to the pain of physical and emotional suffering and loss but the promise of God’s Word is that there is a resurrection and there is a hope. After grief comes joy. Unlike the experience of people in the world who may participate in the passing pleasures the world offers, like the world in its present state, they are as transient as wild flowers in the field.

“The life of mortals is like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.” Psalm 103:15, 16 NIV.

“The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.”  1 John 2:17 NIV.

“For His anger lasts only a moment, but His favour lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” Psalm 30:5 NIV.

As for the disciples, so for us, because Jesus is alive forever, we have the everlasting hope that our weeping will be turned to joy.

Lost and Found

Christian Life, , ,

LOST AND FOUND

“Their grumbling triggered this story, ‘Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn’t you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it? When found, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing, and when you got home call in all your friends and neighbours saying, ‘Celebrate with me! I’ve found my lost sheep!’ Count on it – there’s more joy in heaven over one sinner’s rescued life than of ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue.'” Luke 15:4-7 (The Message).

Jesus’ stories always had a target audience. Sometimes they were used to teach and other times to expose wrong thinking or bad attitudes – especially of His religious opponents. In Hebrew thought, parables were intended, not for information but for identification. Who am I in the story?

This story was one of three, called chain parables. There was a theme running through them, except that the third story had the punch-line. In the first two, Jesus spoke of lost property, a sheep, a coin, of value to the owner. In both stories, the search yielded success – the valuable property was found and the owner called on the neighbours to celebrate. We assume that the neighbours obliged by rejoicing with him or her because there was legitimate cause for rejoicing.

In the third story, something changes; not a sheep wandering away, or an inanimate object like a coin being misplaced, but a wayward son choosing to renounce his father, his family and his heritage and to celebrate his ‘freedom’ by squandering his inheritance with equally worthless hooligans. Of what value was he? In that state, a disgrace to his father and family.

And yet, when he shamefacedly made his way home, his father did not reject him as one would expect, but welcomed him home with open arms, and ordered a huge celebration for the ‘lost’ son who had been ‘found’. But unlike the neighbours in the previous two parables, the elder brother did not value him as a returning lost brother but rejected him as a worthless good-for-nothing. He focussed on his behaviour, not on his intrinsic worth as a son.

And here is the point of the story. It was glaringly obvious who the elder brother represented. The Pharisees had just been criticising Jesus for eating with rejects. They saw no worth in the people who did not ‘behave’ as they did, forgetting that their attitude of superiority was a stench in the nostrils of Jesus, far more offensive than the sins of the ‘sinners’ they despised.

Particularly offensive to Jesus was the contemptuous attitude of those who refused to rejoice over the return of lost sinners. From His perspective it was nothing short of idolatry because they were elevating themselves above people and even above God. They were honouring themselves as the epitome of virtue and writing everyone else off as worthless.

There were two categories of people that Jesus warned about the fires of hell – the greedy and the hypocrite. Of no other groups did He tell stories to highlight God’s attitude to them. Unless they repented, they would be consigned to the garbage dump where worthless rubbish is burned.

The Pharisees thought sinners were worthless but they could not see that their own attitude stifled their potential and made their lives fruitless for God. The returning sinner was welcomed home and came back on track to fulfil his purpose in life. The interlude of his wandering away did not disqualify him from being a son. It only interrupted his fellowship with his father and his growth in becoming a mature son. It was not only an interruption but, in the long run, also a learning experience.

But for the hypocrite there was nothing of value in his attitude, only alienation from the father and the family. This series of stories should have alerted these religious prigs to the very thing in themselves that they judged in others. No wonder they could not rejoice over the return of lost sinners because they had no idea of just how ‘lost’ they were!