If I am not in the habit of rejoicing in the Lord in the good times, then what makes me think I will rejoice in the Lord in the bad times?

Is My Heart in the Proper Habit of Rejoicing in the Lord?

Philippians 3:1

(Children's Sheet for Sermon Interaction is at Bottom. Notes are throughout)

Please turn to Philippians 3:1. As you are turning there I want to say, that, like the Philippians, we are learning a lot from Paul while he is in prison. I know I am, and many of you have told me the same thing. What exactly have we learned? We have learned that Paul starts out writing from prison but he has joy. He offered prayer, and he said it was with joy for the Philippians. Joy overflows from Paul. Joy is a special expression of the Holy Spirit. So Paul prays with joy. Joy should overflow from our hearts. God wants us to have abiding joy in Him. You find it in so many places in Scripture. One reason for this joy is because (as Paul says in the opening) we know that we have fellowship in the gospel. God who began a good work in you will complete it. There is joy in that. We are partakers of God's grace, like Paul is a partaker of grace. We learned that our love for each other should abound even more and more than it is right now. Paul also teaches us that his restraining persecution, and suffering, has turned out for the greater progress of the gospel. What the devil means for evil, God means for good. So in the pain, Paul rejoices in God. The joy in Paul's heart comes out because Paul's Christianity is deeper than His circumstances. That's what we want. It is joy that God has been greatly blessing me with lately. We all need our joy in our heart to come out because our Christianity is deeper than our circumstances. Paul says,

"18 ... in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice," Philippians 1:18

Rejoicing flows from Paul. We also learned that Paul was confident that Christ would continue, as always, to be exalted in Paul's body, whether by life or by death. This is the way we should be thinking. For to us, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if we live on in the flesh, we have an opportunity for fruitful labor in God's kingdom. Like Paul, we should have a hard time deciding which to choose. We should rejoice that we live. We should rejoice that we are going to die. But, it should be a hard choice. We should have a desire to depart and be with Christ; but to remain on in the flesh--means what? It means further service to your Lord. But, we also learned about that particular concern again. The concern is for the fountain of joy to be released from our hearts. Paul says,

"I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith," Philippians 1:25

Progress in the faith is good, but we need to have the joy. God used Paul to minister to bring the release of joy from the Philippians. Paul taught that we should conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. How?--by standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel. God commands us, but Paul also adds the joy connection. He says that this makes his joy complete in 2:2. Then Paul explains that it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but to suffer for His sake too. Though you suffer, you need to be spreading joy in the body. God wants us to be encouraging in Christ, affectionate, and compassionate. We need to be of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Don't do anything from selfishness or empty conceit, but be thinking humbly about yourself. Regard one another as more important than yourself. But do it with joy. Don't merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of the body. It is the mind which was also in Christ Jesus, Who, although He existed in the form of God, humbled Himself as a man by becoming obedient to the point of death on a cross for you. Now he is the exalted King and we rejoice in His work. We need to nurture our salvation with awe and reverence, because it is God who is at work in us. We need to do all things without grumbling or disputing. Grumbling and disputing is not joy. We need to prove ourselves to be blameless and innocent, in the midst of our ungodly generation. You and I appear as God's lights in the world. We have learned that even though Paul is being poured out as a sacrifice on the alter of serving the Lord with the Philippians, he says,

"I rejoice and share my joy with you all." Philippians 2:17

Paul is concerned with the importance of rejoicing. It is so important. You and I must learn to rejoice. He goes on and says,

"18 You too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me." Philippians 2:18

Joy is the message for the moment. There is a lot of real hard life experience going on for Paul. There is a lot of difficulty for the Philippians. Life is tough for you my dear friends. It is tough for pastor Kerry. It is one thing to learn and live like God is in control. It is another thing to rejoice in the midst of heaviness, a hard life, and pain. Joy is the God glorifying connection that is missing from so many Christians while living the life of Christ that He has given us as a gift. God is teaching me to nurture the habit of rejoicing even more and more than I do now. I am learning this knowing from the Bible, but also experientially, that joy of the Lord is something that we have by the power of the Spirit. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit. It comes from God, which means we possess it, and we do it in rejoicing. So, with all of this in mind, we come to our passage, where Paul starts a new section with a summary statement. It is our text for this morning. Please read it with me now. Paul says,

"Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord." Philippians 3:1

Let us prepare our hearts to learn from the preaching of God's word in this sermon that has a theme in the form of a question;

Is My Heart in the Proper Habit of Rejoicing in the Lord?
[prayer]

1. Is My Heart in the Proper Habit of _____________ in the Lord?

Clearly, as we have already seen, a major thing that Paul wants us to learn and then do, is to rejoice in the Lord no matter how bad everything seems to be going. Now Paul gets here, and he says

"Finally,

[In other words, he's come to a stopping point, and now he is going to make a big exclamation point]

my brothers, rejoice in the Lord." Philippians 3:1

I ask you,

Why is this rejoicing business so strong with Paul?

Why does Paul keep going on, and on with it?

Why does God's Spirit push you with it?

Why does God say in 1 Thessalonians, in that two word verse;

"Rejoice always." 1 Thessalonians 5:16

Always is so demanding. Always means there is no room for a time of joylessness in Christ Who is always at work in your life. Always means that even in the middle of doctrinal strife, and in the middle of relationship strife, hurt feelings, and people problems (which is Paul's contextual point) we are supposed to be doing something that is completely not natural. Why does Paul see a need to magnify this by punctuating the command with a big repeat announcement, where he says in 4:4,

"Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice?" Philippians 4:4

He does this again and again. The reason why this particular subject is so strong on Paul's heart is because of three primary things:

1) Is that when we rejoice in the Lord no matter what, we are giving praise for God no matter what. When we stop and rejoice in the Lord in the midst of the pain, the confusion, and uncertainty about what is going to happen next, then we are worshipping God according to the Spirit. And we need to do this in spite of our flesh, because in our flesh, we don't want to do this. My task, and your task as God's people, is to always appreciate our God. So, when we rejoice in the Lord no matter what, we are expressing our appreciation for God above things that irritate our flesh. Here is our problem. For example, when I, Kerry, want to make my circumstances; (or you want to make your circumstances), part of our appreciation of God, then when we are unhappy with what we are going through, we are tempted to stay there consumed in the rejection of our circumstance, instead of deciding to walk in rejoicing in the God of our circumstances. What God wants us to do is rejoice in Him, which glorifies Him, even when there seems like there is not very much about life to appreciate. To do this, we must keep remembering that it is a privilege to be saved, and it is a privilege to know the One who saves us. This is one reason why rejoicing in the Lord is a subject that is so strong on Paul's heart. Another reason is that:

2) Our rejoicing in the Lord is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.

2. My joy in the Lord, is a __________ of the Holy Spirit.

When we are rejoicing in the Lord, we are not manifesting the flesh. It is not something that the natural man does, nor can do. When you and I rejoice in the Lord, we are manifesting Christ in us our hope of glory, the Holy Spirit in us, and the Father Who is at work in us. So, when we rejoice in the Lord, we share His heart of glory for Himself. It's worship, and the flesh neither wants to do it, nor can do it. This is why you and I must rejoice in the Lord, even when our flesh does not want to. When you hurt, speak it to God. Say,

"I don't understand God. I don't feel joy, like a feeling. But I rejoice in you my God. Thank you. I love you. I appreciate you even though I don't understand, and I don't like what I feel right now."

This is rejoicing in the Lord, and it comes by the Spirit which is much deeper than mere feelings of our flesh. A final reason I will give that we are urged so strongly by Paul to rejoice in the Lord is,

3) Because we need both the urging and the reminders to do so. What I mean is that without God speaking to us His desires from His word, then the Holy Spirit's fruit doesn't ripen to be harvested out of our souls. So, our praise for God does not continue. It's broken. This is made obvious in the fact that the Philippians needed this urging. Persecution, teachings of the Judaizers, disunity in the body, unsurety, the daily harshness of life--it all takes its toll. It is easy to get discouraged with the daily grind. The world is cursed, folks, and it hurts us. We are not of the world, but we are in it. So, we need to have our minds moved out of the curse to be thinking heavenly thoughts. This is why we have the Bible. It is also why we have exhortation. God has to tell us weaklings, through His word, and through other members of the body that we need to rejoice in Him. Notice the important detail once again. Paul says,

"Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord."

Paul is not commanding you to have a positive mental attitude. He is not telling you to be happy because somehow happiness, as an emotional feeling, is good for your soul.

Have you ever had someone come up and tell you, when you are down, to snap out of it and be happy because being happy is good for you?

Turning on being happy, because it is good for you, doesn't work. Paul is not trying to suggest something that is a technique to make us feel good. Paul is talking about the reality of our lives as saved people. In other words, we should be doing this because we are Christians, and God is God, and we have His beauty on our minds. Think about this. Rejoicing in the Lord, is to have the Lord in mind, right? It is to have a proper perspective of Who He is right now; a proper perspective of what good things He has done, and, what He is doing. So, what Paul is urging you and me to do, (as true members of the body of Christ), is to think about Him. This is so key. Why? Because we get distracted when things don't go our way, and we can get junk thoughts, and so our minds are riveted upon all the junk that is in there. And so what we do is, we take our eyes off trusting God. When you take your attention off of God for Who He is, and you are in a tar pit, and you are looking down at the blackness of your plans falling apart, your attention is off of the Creator of the Universe Who saved you in Christ, and so without fail, (when a Christian does this) you no longer see much to rejoice about. This is why we need to separate the two. We need to rivet the attention of our minds on the Lord, and rejoice in Him even though we don't like where we are. I had to do this recently, and I'm finding that I have to do it all the time.

Now think about this; We know that there is nothing anywhere that we can appreciate, or praise, that remotely compares to God--right? We all know this. So, if we keep on going without rejoicing in Who God is, as our habit, we will not break through the cycle of staying there and dwelling on the junk thoughts that have been dumped into our minds. The times that any of us are sinning in respect to this, is when we start thinking that we can not do it. But we can do it. Don't say you can't do it. If you do, you are pouting, and your are not showing faith in your Holy God. Repent. Then there is something like has happened in my own experience; I have focused upon the junk thoughts, and so in my focus I have brooded, and have become all self absorbed in my woe, and so what I have done, is eclipsed the glory of God. But, God is telling me to do what I can do, and should do, and when I do, the glorious power of the Holy Spirit (that's Who we are talking about) is manifested in the midst of the wreck of life that burdens my soul. I've seen it happen over and over again. I've seen it happen recently. The point is that God is not telling me to do something that I can not do. I can do it because I have the Holy Spirit, I have life, I have blessing, and I have the word, and it is my habit. What I am trying to say is that joy in Christ is based upon a mindset, (which is a God-set) where it doesn't matter what I am feeling. What matters is faith in God. So, I must repent from not rejoicing. Repentance, means my negative feelings take the back seat to God. You might be feeling bad, but this is separate from your relationship with God. So, the command, (which is what it is--a command) is to rejoice in the Lord as something that you decide to do instead of letting your emotions and circumstances dictate to you what to do. So here is the principle:

When you are feeling good and everything is bright and shiny, you rejoice in the Lord.

When you are feeling bad, and everything seems dark and gloomy, repent from not rejoicing, and rejoice in the Lord.

If you say that you can't do it, then you are in sin, because God not only says you can do it, it is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, and God commands us to do it right here in His word. It is an urging toward a continuous life-walk in our intimate relationship with God in Christ, rather than some kind of gimmicky quick fix that does not last. According to earthly standards, I should have no joy in many things I have been going through lately. But I do have joy, and I rejoice in the Lord. But I have to turn to Him. If I turn to anything else, then I won't do it.

You and I must be careful not to get in the habit of trying to replace this urging to joy in the Lord that God is telling us to do. It is easy to get in a habit of replacing it. It is easy to seek rejoicing that is based upon, and focused upon self. Think about all the ways that people will try to muster up feelings of joy. They will go out to eat. They'll watch comedies. They will visit with friends. They will consume themselves in work. They will go on vacation. They will go on a spending spree. These things are not inherently wrong. Most of them are good. There's nothing wrong with doing happy things. But, they are far and away from this joy of the Lord, where we rejoice in Him. In the grand scheme of things, all those temporal endeavors are band aids that help people feel good emotionally until the next painful moment pops up. But God is so much bigger than any of that. God is not a band aid. He is our Creator, Father, and Lord. I want to ask a question;

Are you already rejoicing in the Lord as a matter of your daily habit?

We should already be finding our passion, comfort, blessing, and joy in our great God. Instead of being distracted from Him, we should be rejoicing in Him as our habit, so when the heavy hand comes knocking at our door, and we feel like hating our life, then we are already in the habit of rejoicing in the Lord to begin with. This is why the theme of this sermon is that personal question that we need to consider very strongly:

Is My Heart in the Proper Habit of Rejoicing in the Lord?

We want to be in the proper habit of Christian joy, but more importantly, our Holy God wants us to be in the proper habit of rejoicing in Him as daily, consistent, when you wake up, when you're at work, when you eat, when you talk, when you walk, when you sleep, worship. God wants to be worshipped by you habitually.

Let's take a moment to explore what Paul means to rejoice in the Lord in his own context. When Paul, who is prison, rejoices in the Lord, we know he has an inner security in God that overflows in worship mindedness. This is joy that has to do with His knowledge of His security. To get this same security, you need to know who you are in Christ. Paul knows this. This is that kind of inner joy that knows where you are going when you die, and you know the place is a good place. This joy knows that God works all things together for good to you. It is joy that emerges from faith. God wants us to walk by faith and not by sight. Paul rejoices by faith and not by sight, and this is the huge point. This is something that the world does not do. The unsaved world does not rejoice in God, because they do not have faith in Him at all. But for us, there is a time to weep, and a time to mourn, and so we need to rejoice in the Lord in the midst of it all beyond emotions, because it is part of the faith walk that makes us so different than the world.

Also, Paul wasn't angry. Anger gets in the way of rejoicing in the Lord. Anger is manifested in many ways. We can become angry with our life. We get angry with our job, or with our money situation. We get angry concerning world politics. We can get angry with suffering in general, or with sin, and all of this kind of thing. Anger can build a huge wall that gets in the way of rejoicing in the Lord. The anger can be directed at others, and so because of our anger, we don't rejoice. Unforgiveness is a kind of anger. Sometimes it gets so bad that revenge is more desirable than rejoicing in the Lord. Anger is so serious that God warns us about it. God's word says,

"... be slow to anger;" James 1:19

James goes on to say,

"because the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God." James 1:20

The anger of man never achieves rejoicing in God.

Paul says,

"26 Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger," Ephesians 4:26

Whenever you are angry, you need to get over it quickly. But, just like any circumstance that we are in, where we need to make the decision to rejoice, the same goes for rejoicing even though we are angry. In other words, we may be angry and we may not be over it yet, and so the temptation is to use our anger as an excuse not to rejoice in the Lord. But just like any other excuse, anger is a sinful reason to try to hide behind in failing to rejoice in God.

Another thing that hurts rejoicing in the Lord is questioning that God is doing the best thing in your life. Paul is absolutely not doing this. For us, this is a trust issue. What I mean is that when everything is a wreck, we can wonder why God can stop it, but he allows it anyway. It is okay to wonder, but this is the place that people usually start questioning God:

Why isn't God rescuing me out of this problem right now?

Why isn't God helping me in this?

Why did God allow such a thing to happen?

We all ask these questions, but the problem comes when we don't get the answer we are looking for, and so we don't rejoice in the Lord. It is so seductive to think that a painless life is what we deserve. Somehow God is more worthy of rejoicing in, when all is going well for us. But this is simply not true. The testing of our faith produces endurance. But a pain free life often results in sinfulness, carnality, and weak spirituality. This is the problem with the false doctrines of the prosperity gospel. The health, wealth and prosperity doctrine wants you to rejoice in a painless life, instead of the God who gives you life in the midst of the pain. But, even if we don't fall for all of that false doctrine, what happens is that when we are sick, or hurt, we quit rejoicing in things like health because it isn't there. We quit rejoicing in wealth because money failed us. We quit rejoicing in prosperity because we don't think we are very prosperous. The problem is that rejoicing in God is not happening in the first place as a habit, and so in the midst of the shambles, rejoicing in the Lord is the last thing going on. But, God has always been here. He never fails us. His attributes have never changed. Our circumstances have not made Him any different than He has always been. This is the correct perspective, because it is the truth. God never fails you, and in Christ, your prosperity is riches that will go on forever after this wreck of a world is long gone.

There is another reason for not rejoicing in God. It is connected to brooding in hard circumstances where trust in God is diminished. Paul wasn't doing this either. What I am talking about is that many Christians just simply don't understand God according to a way He wants us to understand Him. Jerry Bridges explains the proper understanding of God that I am talking about, in his book titled "Trusting God," where he says,

"In the arena of adversity, the Scriptures teach us three essential truths about God--truths we must believe if we are to trust Him in adversity. they are:

God is completely sovereign.

God is infinite in wisdom.

God is perfect in love.

Someone has expressed these three truths as they relate to us in this way:

God in His love always wills what is best for us.

In His wisdom, he always knows what is best,

and in His sovereignty He has the power to bring it about."--J Bridges

3. God is perfect in____________.

There are people who do not rejoice in God because they do not think that God is completely sovereign. They do not recognize that God is infinite in wisdom, and they do not see that God is perfect in love. In other words, they have an unbiblical view of God. You and I do not want an unbiblical view of God. When we understand, and acknowledge, how immense our God is in the midst of our circumstances, we trust Who He really is, and we have ample reason to rejoice in Him. Think about this. In the arena of adversity (I'm talking about pain) we should rejoice in the Lord always knowing that God, in His amazing love, always wills what is best for us. In the arena of adversity we should rejoice in the Lord always knowing that in His amazing wisdom, he always knows what is best. And in the arena of adversity we should rejoice in the Lord always knowing that in His sovereignty He has the power to bring what He always knows is the best to come about--and He does. When you rejoice in God, you are rejoicing in the One Who is upholding all things by His powerful word, Hebrews 1:3. You are rejoicing in the One Who is holding all things together, Colossians 1:17. Whenever you rejoice in the Lord, you are rejoicing in Him Whom you live and breath and have your being, Acts 17:25-28. You are rejoicing in the one who supplies your daily means, 2 Corinthians 9:10. We can not lose sight of these wonderful things. We are rejoicing in the one who predestined us to be saved since before the foundation of the world. We are rejoicing in the One Who humbled Himself, was rejected for us--tortured, crucified, and resurrected and is our reigning King of kings and Lord of lords. So, we must always keep in mind Who we are rejoicing in, and we must always keep in mind those 3 attributes of Him. They are Biblical:

Your God is totally sovereign.

Your God is totally wise.

Your God is totally loving.

No matter what happens. Knowing this we can joyfully declare in our own words something that sounds like James 4:13-15. I reworked James here to edify us, so listen to the unique way this is worded. It applies well, and we should take it to heart:

"Come now, you who rejoice in the things of the world--you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will rejoice in the world because it is so worthy;' whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to rejoice and say, I rejoice in the Lord who is the one in His sovereignty, wisdom, and love, Who wills all things, and so I rejoice in the fact that if the Lord wills, I shall live and do this or that." Based upon James 4:13-15

4. If the Lord wills I shall___________.

It is vital that we get in the habit of rejoicing in God in respect to His sovereignty,

"In the day of prosperity rejoice, But in the day of adversity consider--God has made the one as well as the other. ..." Ecclesiastes 7:14  

It is also vital that we get in the habit of rejoicing in God in respect to His wisdom, where we can be assured that God is always doing the smartest thing possible, though it may not make sense to us. Psalms declares God's wisdom in precise terms,

"Great is our Lord ... His understanding is infinite." Psalms 147:5

This is why, when we look at the world, we should not question whether God is doing the best thing. It is easy to question, but it is sin. Let me illustrate this from something that I read from Bridges that described what happened in a quiet community in whales. Through it, people questioned God's infinite understanding and wisdom. It happened on an October morning as jobs and business's had begun, and the bustle of everyday life had started on its course to push the day on into the night. It happened shortly after young school children had settled into school classrooms. In that quite morning, without warning at 9:15 AM all of a sudden a landslide flowed down a hill into the town. The muddy slime slid down the hillside. It slowly oozed into the classrooms of the school. It was a horrifying experience, but no one could do anything about it. 109 children and 5 teachers died because they were unable to escape. They tried to escape, but they just couldn't get out in time. The remorse, and the pain we all go through in experiences like this is almost too difficult to describe. We try, right?; but painful things end up happening anyway. We can't escape. Often there is instant regret. Usually the pain goes down deep, and most of the time for many people, the pain never goes away. Life goes on, and the time comes to an end--but not the memories--not the questions. In the midst of the tragedy that had recently happened in that community, the news reporters were in the town interviewing parents and various people about the tragedy. Of course they were asking all the same mindless questions that are typically asked; "How do you feel?," "What are you going to do now." At the time of the interviews, a typical representative religious leader in the Welsh community (who claimed to be a Christian Pastor) was sought out and asked the characteristic questions about God that the secular media loves to ask. As I quote his answer, I want us all to think about what God has revealed to us in His word about His infinite wisdom. The religious leader said,

"Well ... I suppose we have to admit that this is one of those occasions when the almighty made a mistake" ("Trusting God" p. 117, Bridges)

This is why doctrine matters. Doctrine is what drives your thoughts and actions through the power of the Holy Spirit. Instead of recognizing that God is perfect--making no mistakes, the religious leader, (who claimed to be a Christian) reacted wrongly and slandered God and His wisdom. No worship--just bizarre, meaningless, despairing, sinful philosophy. God's word of counsel to us that is meant to comfort us and bring joy, is that His wise ways are simply not our ways. The reformed theologian, J.L. Dagg, described wisdom as,

"consisting in the selection of the best end of action, and the adoption of the best means for the accomplishment for this end"

Dagg goes on and explains this in respect to God,

"God is infinitely wise, because He selects the best possible end of action ... [and] because he adopts the best possible means for the accomplishment of the end which he has in view."

In other words, everything exists as part of God's wise determination. Our duty is to believe this, and rejoice in it.

When we think about the lost sheep of the house of Israel that Jesus came to as Messiah, we think about their hope, and wonder, and zeal for the promised King to come and annihilate His enemies and set up an earthly kingdom that was more vast than Solomon's. It would be the kingdom of God to end all kingdoms, and genetic Israel was going to be the center of it all. They were looking for a little David to destroy the giants. They were looking for a single Samson to destroy whole armies with a bone. At least that is how they interpreted all the wisdom of God in all the prophecies of Messiah. In fact, Peter declares it to Jesus when Jesus asks Who they think He is. Peter says, "You're the Messiah." Jesus tells Peter that this is God's revelation. It is God's wisdom. But, then the time comes for Jesus to be glorified, and it is not what his students expected. When Jesus explained a glimpse of God's wisdom concerning the fact that He must be rejected by the Jews, killed, and then rise again three days later, this didn't seem like God's wisdom to Peter. Peter voiced His concern to Jesus, and Jesus rebuked Peter. Jesus told Peter that he was a stumbling block, and that Peter was not setting His mind on God's interests, but on man's. (cf. Matthew 16:21-23, with Mark 8:27-33) The wisdom of God is perfect. He doesn't make mistakes. Peter could rejoice in Jesus being the great Messiah; But Peter had a hard time rejoicing in the thought that Jesus must be rejected by Israel, and killed. Peter did not trust God's wisdom, and because He did not trust it, he did not even acknowledge that Jesus said that He would rise again on the third day. The lesson for us is that we need to rejoice in God and His wisdom. It does not matter if we do not understand God's wisdom. Our responsibility is to trust God. Later, Jesus is crucified like He said He would be. He raises from the dead like He said He would do. It was all according to His wisdom. The risen Messiah, in His wisdom, tells Peter to feed His sheep. Finally in the resurrection, Peter sees God's wisdom. Peter finally rejoices in God, to God,

"27 For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both ... the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done." Acts 4:27-28

God's hand and purpose is completely sovereign, and infinite in wisdom.

Finally, as I wrap up the sermon for this morning, I want to urge us onto glorying in that love attribute; Let's habitually rejoice in the fact that God is perfect in love,

"God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

"8 Yahweh is gracious and merciful; Slow to anger and great in lovingkindness. 9 Yahweh is good to all, And His mercies are over all His works. ... 17 Yahweh is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds." Psalm 145:8-9, 17

How wonderful it is to worship such a great and beautiful God! God in His love always wills what is best for you. In His wisdom, he always knows what is best, and in His sovereignty He has the power to bring it about. This is the Lord that that we rejoice in always. The question has been,

Is My Heart in the Proper Habit of Rejoicing in the Lord?

If you are not rejoicing in the Lord in the easy times, what makes you think you are going to rejoice in the Lord in the difficult times? Rejoice in the Lord. Make it your habit. It is your praise. It is worship. Don't let anything get in the way of your worship. Leave here thinking that God is completely sovereign; God is infinite in wisdom; God is perfect in love. In His love, He always wills what is best for you. In His wisdom, he always knows what is best, and in His sovereignty He has the power to bring it about. Knowing this, let's rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice.

CHILDREN'S SHEET:

"Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord." Philippians 3:1

1. Is My Heart in the Proper Habit of _____________ in the Lord?

2. My joy in the Lord, is a __________ of the Holy Spirit.

3. God is perfect in____________.

4. If the Lord wills I shall___________.

PARENTS:

--Please discuss the passage below this week.
--You may wish for your child to memorize a word, or portion from this passage.
--You may also wish for you child to remember the above them.