As I sit on Easter Bank Holiday Monday in the UK in a world where going to the supermarket is the highlight of my week and where everyone I know seems to be a world-class epidemiologist ready to instruct the government on how to best deal with coronavirus. On a more serious note, I sit in a world where numbers of deaths under 800 per day is considered a ‘success’ at the moment and where everyone seems fearful of interactions with others and how to avoid this terrible illness. Fear, anxiety, concern, worry – all seem to be the words of the moment. So how am I, as a follower of Jesus, supposed to navigate all of this.
Ever since I became a fully-committed follower of Jesus twenty-nine years ago, I have had various favourite scriptures and passages which have spoken to me a different times. However, one passage became my absolute favourite when I became a Christian and it has been my favourite ever since. It always seems to speak in to every situation but has been the one I keep coming back to in this time of pandemic and lockdown. So, I thought I would unpack the passage over the next week in a series of reflections. I want to say a huge thank you to my friends in Vale Village Church for the privilege of being able to preach this back in August 2019 when the world seemed a lot less crazy than it does now!!
So the whole passage from The Passion Translation is:
“Be cheerful with joyous celebration in every season of life. Let joy overflow, for you are united with the Anointed One! Let gentleness be seen in every relationship, for our Lord is ever near.
Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell him every detail of your life, then God’s wonderful peace that transcends human understanding, will make the answers known to you through Jesus Christ. So keep your thoughts continually fixed on all that is authentic and real, honourable and admirable, beautiful and respectful, pure and holy, merciful and kind. And fasten your thoughts on every glorious work of God, praising him always. Follow the example of all that we have imparted to you and the God of peace will be with you in all things.” (Philippians 4:4-9)
So, today, I will start at the beginning with verse 4 and say that the first step to staying sane in a crazy world, is to BE JOYFUL.
“Most of all, friends, always rejoice in the Lord! I never tire of saying it: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4 The Voice Translation)
A couple of years ago, some good friends came to stay with us for the weekend and joined us at City Church on the Sunday when, if I remember rightly, we were preaching our values and were on the value of choosing joy. When they left to go home, they set up a WhatsApp group where regularly ever since we have shared encouragements to choose joy. Sometimes these have been silly but often these have been sent through gritted teeth in the midst of stress, struggle or pain. Joy is not the first thing we think of when we’re in the midst of difficulty and worry and yet it is how the Apostle Paul starts this passage.
Now, let me make something clear at the outset. Joy and happiness are not the same. The dictionary would have us think they are almost the same with joy being described as “the emotion of great delight or happiness cause by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure or elation.” (Dictionary.com). But I would argue that they are actually very different. Happiness is utterly dependent on external circumstances, whereas Joy relies on something that is held in the core of our being. Joy is a deep rooted knowledge of something that does not rely on externals. When Paul wrote the letter to the church in Philippi, he was in prison and yet he writes this letter which Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones calls ‘The Life of Joy and Peace.’ Brian Simmons, the translator of the Passion Translation of the Bible, writes:
“What joy and glory came out of Paul’s prison cell! Most of us would be thinking of ourselves and how we could get out; but Paul wanted to send to the Philippian church the revelation of joy!” (Introduction to Philippians – The Passion Translation)
So, we have nothing here that allows us in this time of global uncertainty to say that we are excluded from this verse or that Paul doesn’t understand what we’re going through. He certainly knew firsthand what it was like to be in “lockdown.”
Also, let us remember two important things from this verse:
Firstly, this is a command! It is not a suggestion. He doesn’t say rejoice … if you feel like it. There is something about choosing to celebrate God and rejoice in the Lord that starts to transform our attitude and then the externals. Change has got to start deep in the inside before it affects the outside. Too often I have heard myself say (at least in my head, if not outwardly), “When this situation changes, I will feel different …” That isn’t how it works most of the time. We need to choose to rejoice in God, not our circumstance, not our strength, not anything else which is weak or fleeting. We choose to be joyful in God, who is our rock, our strength, our fortress in times of need.
As it says in the book of Isaiah:
“I will sing for joy in God,
explode in praise from deep in my soul!
He dressed me up in a suit of salvation,
he outfitted me in a robe of righteousness,
As a bridegroom who puts on a tuxedo
and a bride a jeweled tiara.
For as the earth bursts with spring wildflowers,
and as a garden cascades with blossoms,
So the Master, God, brings righteousness into full bloom
and puts praise on display before the nations.”
(Isaiah 61:10-11 The Message Translation)
Secondly, Paul repeats himself. Whenever a writer in the Bible repeats something, it is important. The writers do not waste their words and so when Paul says “I will say it again …” we are to prick up our ears and take notice. In some respect, he is saying that there is no point in going on to whatever else he going to write until we get this. Rejoicing isn’t simply something to do on a good day, when the sun is shining and everything is going our way. It is what we need to do in darkness, in pain, in despair, in lockdown. We choose joy, not ignoring the situation we are in but because there is One who knows exactly the situation we are in and still loves us and remains in control of every situation. In his wonderful translation of the New Testament, Bishop Tom Wright translates this verse as:
“Celebrate joyfully in the Lord, all the time. I’ll say it again: Celebrate” (New Testament For Everyone/Kingdom New Testament)
or as the wonderful wordsmith, Rob Lacey put it,
“Celebrate the Boss, 24/7. I’ll copy and paste that – this time in bold: Celebrate the Boss.” (The Word on the Street).
As we make the decision to choose joy each day – not any type of joy but joy IN THE LORD – then we strengthen ourselves deep inside. We build foundations of hope and peace which can be built upon and which we can use when our circumstances do not live up to all that we had expected. We develop a lifestyle where God is at its heart with a knowledge that He is good, whatever our circumstances may suggest.
Therefore, today, can I suggest (and let the Apostle Paul command) that you BE JOYFUL.