Palm Sunday | Rejoice Always (March 28th, 2021) - Mike Armstrong

Alright, well you can get your Bibles turned to Philippians chapter four.

We are starting up our Easter uh series, which is all about uh rejoicing.

And uh so get yourself turned there into the New Testament, Philippians chapter uh four.

Now, I don't know about you, uh maybe you haven't thought about it like I have, uh, but I have always been bothered by this phrase, uh, be happy.

Okay, it's never really settled right with me.

It's the kind of thing that you see on a uh on a sign like that, you'll see it like stenciled artfully on a piece of driftwood and posted in someone's hallway or something like that, or or people post this kind of thing on social media.

Now, maybe you're thinking, like, man, do we gotta get this guy a cup of coffee this morning?

Like, how can you really be that bothered uh by something like this where people are just trying to maybe encourage?

Um I I get that that's the the uh that's the attempt, but I I think these these two words, I I think they they just come across as frankly very trite advice, right?

I I think so.

It's ultimately, I don't think, very helpful advice because these words, this phrase on on its own, it it really gives us no reason why a person should be happy.

It attaches no reason to it whatsoever, what's which just kind of makes it ring hollow, right?

The phrase gives, I don't think, really any consideration whatsoever uh to the very real challenges and problems that a person might be facing in their life that's causing them uh sadness, right?

Just be happy.

Okay, on top of all this, it gives us no instruction whatsoever as to how to get there.

It's just telling you to be there.

Right?

It's like just conjure up some positive emotions, why don't you?

That'll help.

That'll solve everything.

Okay, I think the the appeal to just be happy strikes us as a very empty platitude.

Again, I don't think it's actually helpful advice whatsoever to real people with real problems struggling with happiness.

Now, all of that being said, the biblical version of this phrase is actually good.

It's so much better uh than be happy.

And in Philippians 4, verse 4, we see the the biblical phrase for this, and it's Paul urging this church in Philippi to rejoice in the Lord always.

Philippians 4:4

He says, again, I will say, rejoice.

Now at face value, when you just read that, maybe you're thinking, man, that doesn't sound all that different, then be happy.

Isn't it kind of the same thing?

Well, it's not the same thing, it's actually far better.

And all of this really gets us here to our big idea this morning.

If you're into writing this down, uh, here it is.

Okay, it's because of Christ, I have reason to rejoice always.

Because of him.

Now, again, like I said, as we begin our Easter series today, uh, as we mentioned, this Sunday is Palm Sunday, right?

It's just a it's a celebration of that moment, as we even saw in the video there, the moment where Jesus entered triumphally uh into Jerusalem on a cult, right?

And it was too much rejoicing, right?

The people were excited about this.

They shouted Hosanna, which is a which is a shout of praise.

There was jubilee, there was there was anticipation for what the Lord was going to do.

Now, I don't know if you remember back when we looked at Mark 11, which is where you can find this story, we looked at how, yes, they were excited for Jesus, yes, they rightly hailed him the king, but they didn't quite have it all figured out.

They didn't really know what kind of king he was going to be.

They really uh had thought that he was coming in as this conquering hero, this military leader who would come in and clean Rome's clock, basically, and and install Israel as the new superpower in the East.

That's what that's what they were thinking.

That's the kind of king that they thought he was.

But of course, he came to do uh much, much more.

And as we know, to rejoice, okay, that's such a key theme when it comes to Easter, the overall Easter story, that Christ came to do away with the penalty of sin that we as mankind have coming to us because of our great rebellion against God.

Right?

And because he came to do away with the penalty of sin, to wipe away sin, to to bring us into a right relationship with our Creator.

That is the reason that we rejoice.

That is why we have so much reason to shout Hosanna and to praise Jesus Christ the King.

Right?

Because of what he's done.

That that is what our rejoicing is really anchored to.

Okay, so look again with me at this verse as we pull it apart a little bit.

Okay, that first word, of course, just rejoice.

Okay, it means, again, pretty straightforward, it means to be glad, to delight in something.

Okay, it's this idea of joy.

You know, Paul is telling us be joyful, delight in the Lord, be glad.

Again, rejoice, and it says this, these next three words are super, super important and very easy to glaze over it, but he says this rejoice in the Lord.

Okay, rejoice in the Lord.

Okay, there right there is our reason.

That is the reason that you and I can rejoice this season or frankly any season.

Okay, this is not some kind of you know, shallow pep talk to just be happy without any reason attached to that.

Okay, this is a this is a call and an urging, a command, even, to be joyful because of the awesome truth, the awesome reality that you are the Lord's.

Okay, that's what in the Lord literally means.

It means rejoice because you are in, you know, you are the Lord's, you are his.

Okay, it can also mean this literally rejoice because of what the Lord has done.

Okay, that's again just a literal understanding of that.

You and I can can actually rejoice because of the life-changing events of Easter and of the gospel, that Christ came down to make us right, to fix our problem, to make us whole, to make us new.

Because you are saved and you are rescued from wrath, you are rescued from hell forever, you're given purpose, you're given new life, you're given eternity to look forward to in glory.

Because of all of those things, you and I can honestly, legitimately rejoice.

Okay, on top of all of this, rejoicing is something that we're to do and can do always.

Right?

You see that that is the word there that Paul uses.

And it means, again, very straightforward, just it means constantly.

That's what the word always means.

It means no matter what.

So you and I, we can rejoice in the good times in life.

We can rejoice in the in the not so good times.

Why?

Well, because our joy is not dependent on our earthly satisfactions or pleasures or or our circumstances going the way that we would desire them to go.

And if you think about this, Paul's writing this letter to the church in Philippi, and they are under much conflict.

It talks about that.

There's opposition from without, there's opposition from within, false teaching.

Life was difficult and challenging, but the Lord was doing a work in that, and Paul encourages them to rejoice.

Yeah, on top of this, Paul is actually writing this letter from prison.

That's not ideal.

I'm just gonna throw that out there.

Right?

It's probably a challenge to have the right mindset, the right understanding and attitude for Paul, but he understands his joy is is anchored to who Christ is and what Christ has done.

Okay, and so just like the Philippian church, just like just like Paul, our joy is to be tied to these things, right?

To to who Jesus Christ is, his his nature.

Do you think about his his character, who he is?

He is he is perfect, he is holy, he is blameless, he is good, he is so merciful.

We sung about that.

He's he's full of grace, he is kind.

Right?

Our joy is to be tied into that.

We're our our our joy is to be tied into, of course, what he has done.

We've touched on that this morning already, and we're gonna do that much more on Friday and and Easter Sunday.

As we look at the at the cross and the goodness of that, as as horrific as it was, and and of course the resurrection where he actually defeated death and he crushed sin and the enemy's power.

Okay, our joy is to be tied into those things, but it's also to be tied into who we now are in him.

Because of your of your salvation, because that you because you've been forgiven, because of who Christ is and who he declares you to be, you now have a new identity.

You are not what the world will try to get you to be.

You are not what your flesh will try to run after.

You are not your victories, you are not your failures, you are not your vocation, you're you're none of those things.

You are who Christ says you are.

If you want to jot down Ephesians chapter 1, take a look at that this week and look at the amazing, amazing identity that Christ has given us.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

That's where our joy comes from.

And so after Paul, he he's encouraged them, he's challenged them, commanded them even to rejoice in the Lord always, he he repeats it.

He has a way to like double down.

Remember when the when the when the scriptures repeat something, it's a way of highlighting the importance of it.

And so that's what he's doing.

He's he's showing the importance of rejoicing.

He says, Again, I will say, rejoice.

Which you think about, if you realize and you understand the book of Philippians, it's not the second time he's saying it, it's actually the third time he's commanded them to rejoice.

He said it in chapter 3, verse 1, where he just gets their hearts and their minds on this.

See, Paul, again, he recognized better than most people did how crucial it is to rejoice in the Lord always.

And it's because life can be so full sometimes of disappointments, can be full of challenges and pain and confusion.

I love how the scriptures don't pretend that none of that exists and just tells us to be happy, anyways.

It faces that stuff head on and says, even though we can and must rejoice.

And it and it tells us that, and we know that we must, because if we don't, our disappointments and our and our pain and our confusion will leave us disillusioned.

Over time, our heart we get more and more cynical.

Has COVID caused any of that for you?

It's done a little bit of that for me.

I've got to check myself.

It leaves us cold-hearted when we go through difficulties and problems and we're not rejoicing.

I think further down the line of that, even it can get us to the place of hopelessness and despair.

Right?

And that is where we will get if we are not returning to where our joy is found and coming back to that source and reminding ourselves of the gospel and again who Christ is and who we are in Him.

And so, what we want to do this morning, as we've been doing for the last number of weeks now, is we're gonna go to prayer, but what we want to do is actually practice rejoicing as we go to prayer as a way of applying this text and actually putting it into action uh right now.

Because I think we all know what it's like to be like, yeah, I need to rejoice, and then we head out from here and we forget to do it.

And so I want to just get these prayer points uh put up on the screen here because this is what I want to urge us as a church to do.

That we would express our praise to Christ for who he is.

Right?

As you're praying this morning, we have to remember that prayer is not just confessing our sin, which is so crucial and so important, but it's also exalting in the Lord and praising him for who he is.

You'll see that second one there.

It's it's expressing our gratitude to the Lord for what he has done for us.

Have you thought about the gospel?

Have you reflected on that this week and praised the Lord and thanked him for the forgiveness that's found through what he did?

And then lastly, here, let's ask for Christ's help to rejoice, even as we experience life's challenges.

There are gonna be challenges, there will even be seasons where it just feels like that's all there is.

But once again, Paul urges us to rejoice.

And I think that's a great start for us to think about as we consider the start of this Easter series for us, and as we get our hearts and our minds and our actions uh ready to worship the Lord and to remember everything that He has done uh next weekend.

And so we're gonna do that.

We're gonna pray now.

I'm gonna close uh in prayer and wanna remind you again if you're at home, we're gonna have uh Zoom prayer at 11 o'clock.

Dave Grant uh we'll be praying with you during that time.

But I want to pray now, and then what we'll do is we'll again, like we've been doing, you can move your chairs around if you like, you can pray uh with uh your family, you can pray with somebody else that's close by.

We'll just spend the next uh few moments doing that.

And again, I just want to remind you that as you're done praying, if you could make your way kind of out into the lobby and out into the parking lot, that would be so helpful uh to us and really keep this as a focused, kind of prayerful space that we would learn to rejoice.

So let me pray.

God, we thank you, we thank you, we thank you for everything that you have done.

Lord, we confess that it's so easy to get our minds off of you, our eyes off of you, and onto our circumstances, and and when we do that, we're we're in trouble.

And so, Lord, I pray that you would stir up our understanding of the gospel, Lord, that we would we would be filled with wonder as to who you are and what you have done.

Lord, that our hearts would praise you, the King who came to defeat sin and death for us.

And so, God, as we think about these things, Lord, get our hearts ready for next weekend.

Lord, get our hearts ready for just everyday life, that we would learn to rejoice no matter what is going on, that we would be joy filled people, that we would do this constantly, that we would rejoice always.

So, God, help us in these things.

Bring glory to your Son Jesus Christ through these things.

We pray.

It's in his name.

Amen.