Ready to Rejoice
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, rejoice.”
Two reasons that it is my joy to exhort you from this passage this morning.
Reason One: Because the call to rejoice in God is the call to the most glorious, significant, and consequential thing that a human being can do. Which is why, of course, the Bible so resounds with invitations to, “Be glad in the Lord” (Ps. 32:11), “Magnify the Lord” (Ps. 34:4), “Delight yourself in the Lord” (Ps. 37:4). It is because there is no greater work in all the world to do than, “rejoice (be glad) in the Lord.”
Reason two: Because I’m convinced that the most evident, consistent, and defining trait of this church throughout the years has been our glad-hearted readiness to rejoice in the Lord. I mean, by God’s grace, we come here just eager, excited, to rejoice in God, don’t we? We love, we just love to celebrate Him — all he is and all he does.
It is, I believe, our defining trait as a church, and it is certainly the trait that I am going to miss the most.
And so, if I could borrow from the language of 1 Thessalonians, Cities Church: I exhort you, that as you have been called to rejoice in the Lord, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more and more and more throughout all the days ahead.
Prayer of Confession
Father, we thank you for the incredible honor of getting to rejoice in you. Getting to make our hearts glad in you. And we thank you too, for the many good fruits and good works that grow out of this most primary, and precious practice of our church.
At the same time, Father, we also ask for your forgiveness. For while it is true — we do regularly love to rejoice in you — yet it is also true that we, at times, don’t. And, instead, we end up rejoicing in things in place of you, or rejoicing in things that are contrary to you. We, in our words, thoughts, and actions, rebel rather than rejoice in you. And so, we bring this sin and the specific outworkings of it in our lives, to you now in this moment of silent confession.
