Brethren, rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let all men know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, do; and the God of peace will be with you.
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“Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice!” If there is any one pericope from all the Epistles of the great Paul that brings me a great sense of optimism and exuberance about Christianity this is it. Rejoice, what a wonderful word. Rejoice is beyond happiness. It is beyond gladness. Rejoice is being able to find the peace wherein the heart can leap and gambol about, soar into the air and come down in rest upon the clouds. Rejoice is something that tells us not that our cup is full but rather that it overflows; and overflows abundantly and constantly.
Trust in the Lord for he is good, and his love endures forever. Trust in the Lord even when you do not understand what it is you should be trusting in. Who are you, O man, to know the ways of the Lord? After all God’s ways are not our ways. God’s ways are inscrutable. I am reminded of the psalmist who says: this is the day the Lord has made let us rejoice and be glad.
Rejoice in the Lord always. Giving praise to God is something that the believing heart seeks always to do. Filled with love for Christ, there is this urge, impossible to resist, to leap within as waves of love for the Lord overwhelm us. What greater joy can there be than to know that my creator loves me so much that he instigated his divine plan for the sole and express reason that I be saved? What can I give God in return? What does God need from me? Well, for one thing, God certainly has no need for things material. God made everything, and if he has a lack of something he immediately brings it into being. Consequently, material things that may motivate us, as mere humans, have no place in the relationship between man and God. Leap for joy! Sing a song! Feel exultation! Feel as though your heart is going to burst away from your chest because of the overwhelming love you have for Christ. Yes, rejoice in the Lord.
Thus the Philippians experience a Christianity that is not merely dynamic but intensely charismatic and overwhelmingly based on unity, humility and generosity in the love and emulation of the Lord. These few people from the church of Philippi in Greece were swept up with burning love and zeal of their God.
Not only were they to rejoice but to be gentle with one another – both to friend and foe alike. That gentleness of spirit would be their hallmark, which would declare to the world not only are they God’s children but God is also with them. So, the Philippians were extolled to manifest all closely aligned character traits towards gentleness. Notice, if one is gentle then other things follow – arguments and disputations are something that gentle people do not embrace. Moreover, boisterous activities, secular activities and activities promoting aggression are avoided by gentle people.
And the upshot? Why, nothing less than the peace of God. Peace, my peace I give to you is what the resurrected Lord gave the disciples. The peace of the Lord is the most keenly sought state of being. Resting in the Lord is something that is deeply to be desired. As the psalmist puts it: the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Yes, even though I may walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For Christ will be with me and Christ will comfort me.
Then can be no greater comfort to a person than the peace of the Lord. The Lord reciprocates and magnifies back the love of his creature towards him. Indeed the Lord will prepare a table before each and every one of us who have the peace of the Lord. Those that oppress us, those who hate us and those who condemn us will watch in impotent rage. Those who have found the peace of the Lord will have their head anointed with oil and their cups will indeed run over. Those who follow the peace of the Lord will in turn have goodness and mercy following them all of their days and will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
So the great Paul calls all those who follow to look to the noble and virtuous things of life. Those attributes which grace us and determine us as authentic human beings. Not as beings that are corporal, secular and base but higher beings: refined, gentle, pure, just and true. All those good virtues. All these promises are the true meditations of the believing Christian.
So, like the psalmist, Paul extols those faithful few in Philippi to cleave to God. I will praise you, O Lord with my whole heart. I will tell of all your marvellous works. I’ll be glad and rejoice in you. I will sing praise to your name, O most high. Rejoice in the Lord and revel in his peace.
After all, we as humans have one very special gift that is given by God. Notice, that once you give a gift, then, what you have given becomes the property of the receiver. So, God has given us this gift called free will and that has become ours to use as we will. One of the things that God deliberately does not do is to force us to be good. This is a great mystery. You would have thought that if God made us very, very, good he would have taken away from our nature the sorts of things that have the capacity to reduce us to mere animals. But, no, he didn’t. Why?
I think the answer is that God wishes to see whether or not each one of us, freely and voluntarily comes to the realisation that peace and rest can only come in Christ. This is a daring enterprise by God. After all, the power to love includes a power to not love. We do not have to love God. We are more often than not tempted by the devil to shun God. The devil drips into our consciousness ideas that cause us to turn away from God. Each day we are tempted by the devil to go against the love and will of God. Look how wily he is! Knowing full well the answer the serpent asks Eve, “has God indeed said you shall not eat from every tree of the garden?” Notice that God tells Eve that she may eat all forms of fruit save and except from the fruit of the tree in the middle the garden. God had told her expressly: you shall not eat from it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.
The devil said to the woman you shall not die by death for God knows on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil. Yes, our free will earned man exile from Paradise. It is the same free will that is capable of returning us back to God. In order to return back to God we must show that we have freely chosen to be with him. We must show that we have chosen the superior for the inferior and the permanent as opposed to the ephemeral. In that way, we too can be like the Philippians who were able to imitate Paul and by imitating Paul were imitating Christ and by following Christ gained the peace of God which passes all understanding.
