Rejoicing Even When It Goes Wrong
“It goes like lighting.”
That’s the way a guy described his new electric car to a group of guys at a party. “The car is so heavy, I can’t punch the accelerator too often or it will ruin the tires,” he said. He went on to extol the joys of driving past a gas station and waving as weary souls filled their tanks.
This guy truly rejoices in his new car. What are you rejoicing in these days?
Maybe it’s the lazy days of summer, a new baby, your favorite baseball team, an unexpected raise, a loved one turning his life over to Christ, or a good medical report.
Rejoicing and Pain
Rejoicing comes naturally when things go our way. But how does a person rejoice amid hardship or pain?
With great passion, Paul tells his dear friends in Philippi to “Rejoice in the Lord.” Philippians 3:1
Yet he writes these words while chained in a Roman prison. How can he talk about rejoicing when his own life hangs in the balance?
Paul had learned a secret. But before we go there, let’s focus on what it means to rejoice.
Confidence
We often associate it with a happy feeling about some circumstance. But for Paul, we rejoice when we put our confidence in something or place our hope in it.
With great vulnerability, Paul reveals to his friends where he had placed his confidence his until recently: In his flesh. In other words, his hope was in his religious birthright and spiritual pedigree.
Paul says, “If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more:
Circumcised on the 8th day
Part of the chosen people, Israel, from the tribe of Benjamin
A Hebrew born of Hebrews
As to the Law, A Pharisee
As to Zeal, a persecutor of the church
As to righteousness under the Law, blameless.” (Philippians 3:4-6)
For reference, there are 613 laws in the Old Testament. Paul says he kept them all.
He lays down a rock-solid resume. No Israelite in his or her right mind could argue against it.
Count as Loss
“But everything I have supreme confidence in,” he says, “all my spiritual trophies and accolades, I now count as loss. They are all loss.”
Philippians 3:7-8 (paraphrased)
For a Jew like Paul, this is an unthinkable break with his past. Why count such valuable things as loss?
“Because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”
Philippians 3:8 (NRSVUE)
Breaking with the Past
Here is Paul’s secret: spiritual maturity requires making a break with the past. He stopped rejoicing in something – his moral conformity – and started rejoicing in Someone – Jesus his Lord.
Perhaps you know what it is like to have total confidence in something and then it slips away from you. It might have been a marriage, a friendship, a job, a reputation, a home, or an identity.
Maybe you realized it wasn’t what you thought it was. That in fact, it didn’t have the power to do what it promised. It couldn’t make you feel happy or worthy or important or enough.
Paul gets this. He had it ALL, spiritually speaking. But now he sees the emptiness of putting his confidence in an outward form of righteousness.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent a lifetime putting my confidence in all kinds of things that have disappointed me.
Whether it was relationships or church growth or popularity or money or possessions or academic degrees or spiritual pedigrees, every one of these and many more have all come up short.
Switch to Someone
At some point, we are called to switch from rejoicing in something to rejoicing in Someone.
Listen to how Paul describes this profound break with his past:
For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.
Philippians 3:8-9 (NRSVUE)
At a former church, we had a Jr. and Sr. High youth choir. One Sunday, as they were rehearsing before the service, one of the mothers of a choir member said, “You see that girl, the 4th one in from the left?”
I said, “Yup.”
She said, “She is a fourth-generation member of this church.”
There were a number of things that went through my mind at that point - most of which I filtered out.
What I finally said was, “Wow. That’s really great.”
What I wanted to say was, “Wow. That’s really great. But does she know Jesus? Has she received the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus as her Lord? If not, being a 4th generation member of this church or any other will come up desperately short one day.”
Deep Change
Consider with me for a moment. Where are you placing your confidence? In your work, your degrees, your looks, your family, your money, your connections, or your personality?
What would it be like to count all those things as loss and instead, place your total confidence in Jesus Christ? Imagine rejoicing in what he can do in you and through you that no measure of your own strength or smarts could ever achieve.
In this kind of deep change, the platelets of the earth shift within us. When we make this switch, we will discover on a whole new level what it means to rejoice not in something, but in Someone.
It’s Here!
Excited to share that Kinda Christian Workbook released May 26! It is designed to help individuals, small groups and classes who want to go on a deeper journey with Jesus. It’s a companion book to Kinda Christian: From Curious to Serious About Jesus.
The workbook includes much of the original content of Kinda Christian, but it also offers space to reflect on newly added questions, exercises, and journal prompts to help integrate life-giving spiritual practices into our daily lives.
Individual workbooks as well as bulk discount prices for churches and groups are available only at Invite Ministries here.