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The Obedient Christian Life part 4 (Philippians 2:12-18) – November 16, 2025

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Philippians 2:12–18

Philippians 2, we’re starting in verse 12.

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

(Philippians 2:12–18)

Opening Prayer

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you that you are a good God that showers us with all sorts of blessings and gifts. We thank you, Father, that we can come into your presence and praise your name. We thank you, Lord, that your Word is true and it will stand true forever. Lord, we ask that you would do a work in our hearts today, continue to mold us, continue to shape us, continue to conform us to the image of your Son. And we pray that you would do a deep work in us, a lasting work in us, Lord, where you are glorified. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Be Glad and Rejoice

All right. Last week we looked at the command to basically stop complaining. And this week we’re actually looking at two more commands, which really have kind of an overlap. But in this passage, there’s actually only three commands, verses 12 through 18. And we get the first one coming in around verse 14, where he says, do all things without grumbling or disputing. That was my sermon last week. So if you missed that, you should listen to it. Very appropriate for our day and age. But we get two more commands and we don’t get them actually till the very last verse in this passage in verse 18, where it says, likewise, you also should be glad and rejoice with me. So be glad and rejoice. Those are the two commands. So in this passage, we’re told to not do two things. We’re told to not grumble. We’re told to not dispute. In this passage, we’re told to do two things. We’re told to be glad and we’re told to rejoice. Here’s the thing. It’s not enough to stop complaining. Last week, this is almost like a part two, even though we’re kind of in a series—this is like the fourth in a series of the obedient Christian life. But really this [audio unclear]. Here’s the thing about these two commands. It’s very interesting. And I think a couple versions do a good job of bringing it up. But it’s actually the same Greek words twice. So when he says, be glad, I know some versions put it a little bit differently. But when he says be glad and rejoice, he’s actually just saying rejoice, and then he’s actually saying rejoice with me. He just adds a prefix to the second Greek word. So it’s that Greek word that we’ve seen all throughout Philippians so far. We’re actually going to keep seeing it. It’s that word rejoice. So he’s saying rejoice, and then he’s actually saying rejoice with me. The King James does a good job. It says, “For the same cause also do ye joy, and rejoice with me.” And then the NAS as well says, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me. The idea is they’re kind of synonymous. There’s an idea of rejoicing apart from everyone else. You know, you’re at home, you’re at work, you’re in your car, you’re driving, right? But then there’s the sense of togetherness and rejoicing. We’re coming together and we’re rejoicing, like a communal rejoicing.

All of Christ for All of Life

The last point where he talks about, do all things in verse 14. What does all things include? All things. Hey, you guys are sharp, good job. But my point is this: it’s not confined to one area. It’s not confined to one place. Every activity of life that we do should be for the glory of God. What does 1 Corinthians 10 say? For whatever you do, whatever you eat or drink, do all for the glory of God, right? Same idea we have in Colossians 3. Any attempt to divide the activities of life into spiritual and sacred categories, it’s negated by this view, okay? Everything in life should be transformed by salvation. Everything in life should be transformed by your salvation. That’s the idea we had as our motto a couple of years ago, all of Christ for all of life. That’s the idea. All is for the glory of God. That’s why you get commands that are, do all things. Not just some things, do all things. Not a little area of life or part of your life or most of your life, no. Abraham Kuyper, you all heard of him? Here’s what he said. There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry out, Mine. That includes you individually. That includes you as a family. That includes you as a church member. That includes you as a citizen. It applies to all spheres. Actually, Kuyper was kind of the idea behind that sphere theology. The idea carries on with rejoicing. We do all things without complaining, and we do all things with rejoicing. All things with rejoicing. And here again, we’re back to attitude. Last week I hit on attitude. Here we are again, with attitude. Rejoicing is a mindset. It is an attitude. It’s a disposition. All right, so even when he talks about earlier, even if I’m to be poured out, like he’s basically saying, even if I’m about to be martyred, I’m glad and rejoice. He’s sitting in prison, he’s facing potential execution, and what’s his mindset? What’s his disposition? Joy, rejoicing. Well, what happens to us? We’re like, man, I can’t believe this light is staying red so long. You know, why can’t we get a consistent Wi-Fi signal at home? Why can’t you give me what I want on the TV? I mean, that’s back, we’re back to complaining, right? I mean, if you don’t replace, if you stop the complaining, you still have to replace it with something. But we’re impatient, we’re unkind, we’re ungracious.

Rejoicing in the Feasts

When we look at a biblical theology of rejoicing from the beginning to the end in the Scriptures, like it’s woven, first we see it in the feasts. So the Old Testament, the Israelites were commanded to celebrate certain feasts. So one of them was the Feast of Booths. What was the purpose of the feast? Well, it was for the Israelites at the time to remember the sojourning of their ancestors living in booths in the wilderness for 40 years. So look at Leviticus, hold your place in Philippians because we’ll be back, but look at Leviticus chapter 23. Again, this is the Feast of Booths. Look what he says. Verse 39: “On the 15th day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord seven days. On the first day shall be a solemn rest, and on the eighth day shall be a solemn rest. And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.” How many days were they rejoicing? Seven days. Some of us can’t even do that for 25 minutes. Would we be able to rejoice for seven straight days? I don’t know. But the Israelites did, and guess what? They were commanded to do it. Rejoice, rejoice. Same with the Feast of Weeks. The Feast of Weeks, also known as Shavuot or Pentecost, was celebrated exactly seven weeks after the day of firstfruits during Passover. One of the major pilgrimages described in the Old Testament. There’s three of them. But it was an agricultural harvest festival. Halloween, some people don’t call Halloween, right? They have a problem with that. Well, I mean, it was an agricultural harvest festival. It marked the beginning of the barley harvest, beginning of the wheat harvest. But look what it says in Deuteronomy 16. Verse 9, Deuteronomy 16: “You shall count seven weeks. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain. Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, at the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there.” Think about that. They traveled for what purpose? To gather together and rejoice at how God had blessed them with the harvest. That was it, and they traveled to it, you know, not just like 30 minutes down the road. They traveled to it together and what did they do? It was a day of joyful thanksgiving, having a great time, and guys, like we’re just going to have a day where we all get together, they had a—they were commanded to do it. They were commanded to rejoice. God appointed times and days for them to gather together to rejoice apart from the normal Sabbath. And what was included in those feasts? Rejoicing.

Rejoicing in Worship

But it was also part of the normal worship in the wilderness. I mean, we’re going to see it. Verse 5, Deuteronomy 12: “But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. There you shall go, and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.” I mean this is where it starts, the rejoicing in worship. In worship. If you can’t rejoice here, you’re going to be really challenged to rejoice out there. So it starts here. God literally encased it into his laws that when you come before him in the Old Testament you worship and you rejoice. So he appoints days and times not just with the feast but days and times regularly for them to come together to worship him and the key aspect of that was rejoicing. Look at Deuteronomy 26. Again, it’s talking about offerings of the firstfruits and the tithes. Look what it says. We’ll start in verse 8: “And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great deeds of terror, with signs and wonders. And he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground, which you, O Lord, have given me.” And you shall set it down before the Lord your God and worship before the Lord your God. And you shall rejoice in all the good that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house, you, and the Levite, and the sojourner who is among you. Over and over again, this is what we see. And who is included in these commands? Like he kind of makes it clear. It’s like you, your household, the sojourner, the widow, the Levite, all of them need to be here, need to be rejoicing, they need to be worshiping. So this is normal worship. But here’s the thing. This is just normal worship in the wilderness. So they had the tabernacle, that’s where they’d go, that’s where they do their sacrifices. So it really wasn’t that far of a journey at the time. That’s normal worship in the wilderness. But what happens once they get to the promised land? Do things change? No, they don’t change. Back in Deuteronomy 12, look what it says. It’s the same passage we were just in. Deuteronomy 12:10: “But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety, then to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the Lord. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants and your female servants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no portion or inheritance with you.” This is once we’re in the promised land. This is what they’re supposed to keep doing, right? At the temple once it gets built, the place appointed. That’s where they’re supposed to go. That’s where they’re supposed to rejoice. But it is actually, again, built into the laws. Do you think God lowers the standard [audio unclear]? You could easily call that book, instead of Ezra, Zerubbabel, because he leads the first charge back, so to speak, to rebuild the temple, and he actually comes with a much larger crowd of people from [audio unclear].

The Joy of the Lord Is Your Strength

And we’ll start in verse 9, and Nehemiah, who is the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, this day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep. For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law. Well, why are they weeping? Well, in part because they realize they’ve fallen short and they failed. Then he said to them, go your way, eat the fat, and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready. For this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. Now, sometimes the proper response to God’s Word is to be convicted, right? Is to mourn, is to weep over your sin, over the grievous things that you’ve done. That’s entirely appropriate. Here he’s saying, hey man, God’s doing this great work, okay? So you’ve had a little time to mourn, but now we need to rejoice at what God’s done. The temple’s rebuilt, the wall, we’re dedicating the wall here, like let’s rejoice. So he says, go your way, right? Eat the fat, drink the sweet wine. He’s commanding them to do these things. And then go to verse 11. So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, be quiet, for this day is holy. Do not be grieved. And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them. Well, one of the things that the Word of God should do for you is it should cause great rejoicing. I mean, you’re hearing it and you’re hearing extolled how amazing God is. You’re hearing how amazing his Son is. You’re seeing him high and lifted up, a clear picture being painted. And then you’re also seeing like how far short you fall, but you see what God has done for you. What you deserve and what you get are two different things. You deserve hell, you get heaven. Right, so you, I mean here, they go away rejoicing. Well, that’s an appropriate response. Turn a couple chapters later, you’re going to see the same thing. Yeah, actually, here’s where they’re dedicating the wall. I think I said they dedicated earlier. But this is the passage where they’re dedicating it. And look what it says. It kind of goes through the different people involved and the different gates and the different towers all the way through down to verse 43. And they offered great sacrifices that day and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy; the women and children also rejoiced. And the joy of Jerusalem was heard far away. And part of the reason they’re rejoicing, right, is they’re commanded. So whenever they’re offering sacrifices, they’re supposed to rejoice. So they’re doing that, but it also says God had made them rejoice with great joy. And I like how it says like, and the women and children too, okay, like everybody. Again, everyone’s involved in this. So much so what? The joy of Jerusalem was heard far away. They heard it from a distance. There was so much joy going on. That’s pretty cool. Even when you come to the actual tithe, there’s supposed to be a gladness of heart and a rejoicing. Look back in Deuteronomy. I know I got you all flipping [audio unclear]. “And before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.” See, you know, you come with your tithe, you get to partake in it. I mean, a lot of it you give to the Levites, right, but you get to partake. But look what it says: and if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you which the Lord your God chooses to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the Lord your God chooses. So it’s like, man, I’ve been blessed so much and it’s like miles and miles and miles away. What are you supposed to do? It’s like it wouldn’t be practical to take it all there. You sell it and you turn it into money. Well, what do you do then? Well, you still go. You still go to the place the Lord your God chooses, it says. And look what it says in verse 26: and spend the money for whatever you desire, oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink—we’ll scratch that part out for the Baptists here—but oxen or sheep or wine, whatever your appetite craves, and you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household. I mean, God’s literally like, hey, it’s so far and I bless you so much, just sell it. And you set up the party exactly how you want. All right, you like the ribeyes, you buy the ribeyes. You like the lobster? Sorry, that’s off the menu in the Old Testament, okay? No lobster, no shrimp. You want some chicken? I don’t know if they had chickens back then. They probably didn’t either. So you’re back to steak, but that’s a pretty good choice, okay? But buy whatever you want, all right? You want the barley loaf? Okay, you want the wheat loaf, whatever you want. Whatever you want. And come and do what? Rejoice before me. Rejoice before me. That’s, I mean, really, even think about it like the Lord’s Supper. I mean, we should be rejoicing. So tithing. Then we have the example of Hannah right after again. She’s at the temple. This is after Samuel has been born. What does Hannah do with Samuel? I mean, it says actually it’s interesting. It says she lent him to the Lord and she’s like, as long as he’s alive, he’s lent to the Lord. Okay, you gave him to the Lord, right? But what does she pray in chapter 2, 1 Samuel? “My heart exults in the Lord; my horn is exalted in the Lord. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation.” And then there’s the famous example in the ark, right? Some stuff goes wrong with the ark, they have to keep it at the house of Obed-edom. Finally, the Lord’s like, okay, bring the ark up, and what does it say, you can just listen, 2 Samuel 6: It was told King David, “The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God.” So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David with rejoicing. With rejoicing, that’s how he’s going.

A Training Ground

Our Sunday worship, I’m going to say this, it’s a training ground of sorts for us. It’s where we learn to worship the Lord. And if we can’t rejoice here, like I said, it’s going to be really hard to do it out there. It’s a training ground. If you can’t rejoice at what God has done for you here, how are you going to do it out there? So you have to come here and rejoice at what God has done for you. It’s, again, a disposition. It’s a mindset, not a feeling. Disposition or mindset. I mean, and what are you rejoicing about? Well, all sorts of things, mainly who God is, right? I mean, that’s who you’re worshiping. If God never gave you a single thing, listen to this, if he never gave you a single thing, physical or spiritual, he’d still be worthy of all praise and worship. Think about that. Okay, it’s not about what he does. It’s about who he is. So whether he ever does anything or not, because of who he is, that alone makes him worthy of all worship and praise. But God in his goodness has blessed us with many, many, many things. We’re going to have a service in a couple of weeks where people get the opportunity to thank the Lord publicly for how he’s blessed them. But we have spiritual blessings, our salvation, our adoption into the kingdom, the power of sin being broken in our lives, on and on we could go. [audio unclear]

Rejoice in the Psalms

The Psalms, if this is the case, if what I’m putting before you is the case, like we should find, we should expect to find this all over the Psalms. And if you all read the Psalms before, I mean, it is all over the Psalms, right? What did Old Testament Israel sing for their worship? The Psalms. That’s what they sang. And we do see it all over. Listen, Psalm 5:11, “Let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you.” Psalm 16:9, “Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.” Psalm 32:11, “Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!” So again, over and over, rejoice, rejoice, rejoice. And sometimes what do we see them doing? Well, they’re lifting their hands, right? Sometimes they’re shouting, sometimes they’re kneeling down. All of these things are appropriate for worship. Why do we stand every week when it’s time to worship? I mean, why do we stand? You know, we’re showing respect. We’re showing respect. I mean, if an important person, back in the old day when there’s still some manners and things like that, a lady walks into the room and all the men stand up. I don’t really see that anymore, that’s kind of sad. But what’s the idea? President of the United States walks in, what does everyone do? They stand up. To acknowledge, right? To respect, to honor. But even here when we’re standing, so we’ve already done one physical action of standing, but—and Justus has looked at it before and we’re not going to look at it today—but there’s also commands to raise your hands, there’s also commands to clap, there’s also commands to kneel down, there’s also commands to shout. All those commands are appropriate. A lot of times you’re like, well I don’t feel—no, stop right there. It’s not about feelings. It’s disposition, it’s mindset. What you’ll find out if you actually rejoice, if you put it into practice, then yes, gladness will be in your soul. If you actually lift up your hands as a statement of faith to the Lord, you will find out the heart is affected. And even if you shout, the same thing is true. See? It goes on. It goes on in verse 16. “But may all who seek you”—y’all seeking the Lord? Right?—“may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation say continually, ‘Great is the Lord!’” There we go. Psalm 119:162: “I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil.” Yeah, I mean that’s going back to Nehemiah. They hear the Word, they’re rejoicing. What is happening in Psalm 119? He rejoices at the Word. Psalm 118: “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” One psalm I want us to look at together, Psalm 97. So turn there. Psalm 97 verse 1:

The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad! Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. Fire goes before him and burns up his adversaries all around. His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth. The heavens proclaim his righteousness, and all the peoples see his glory. All worshipers of images are put to shame, who make their boast in worthless idols; worship him, all you gods! Zion hears and is glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoice, because of your judgments, O Lord. For you, O Lord, are most high over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods. O you who love the Lord, hate evil! He preserves the lives of his saints; he delivers them from the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart. Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous, and give thanks to his holy name!

(Psalm 97)

And over and over, we have psalms just like this that focus on what? On rejoicing, on coming before him and rejoicing with praise. Back in Philippians, this word that we see all over the Bible, we see it 16 times in Philippians. How many chapters are there in Philippians? Four. 16 times we see either joy or rejoice. And Paul here in Philippians and elsewhere, he emphasizes and emphasizes and emphasizes prospective joy is the central attitude for Christians. Even in suffering, Romans talks about that, rejoice in suffering. But here, joy is the central attitude for Christians. That’s why we’re seeing it all throughout this book. That’s why if you pick up a commentary, it’s like it’s the book of joy. Well, that’s verse 4 in chapter 4. You’re kind of getting the sermon now, really, because it’s saying the same thing. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice. Right? Thessalonians, same thing, rejoice always. Not sometimes, not when you feel like it, not when you’re happy, no, rejoice always. And think about it, this repetition of joy and rejoice, it stands out because think about where Paul was when he’s writing this letter. He’s sitting in prison. Actually, he probably wasn’t sitting. He’s standing in prison. You know, shackled to a guard as we looked at. But he’s standing in prison with joy, shackled to a guard with joy, surrounded by stench and filth with joy. Think about our worship today. You know, charismatics, however you want to define that word. The non-charismatic, whatever term you want to use there, I’m—good job engaging in the Word. But not so much engaging in worship. Here’s the thing. If you’re not doing both, something’s not right. So you should be engaging in worship, rejoicing, you should be engaging in the Word and rejoicing. I remember years ago I was at a party at a friend’s house and there’s a homeschool family there. Well-known, they didn’t go to church here, but well-known homeschool family and I was like, hey where do you go to church? And they mentioned the church. I’m like, oh yeah, I know the pastor. And I’m like, what do you guys do? What are you involved in? They’re like, we only go there for the teaching. Didn’t serve there, didn’t care about the worship, they just liked the fact that the preacher preached a sermon. And we had a family years and years ago that would come here, that would come late and skip worship and say, we’re just here for the Word. We’re just here for the Word. That’s pretty [audio unclear]. Your heart should want to come before the Lord and worship him for how amazing he is and what he’s done for you. I mean, you’ve won the lottery of lotteries, and that pales in comparison to the salvation that you have in Jesus Christ. We should be rejoicing greatly to think that we deserve hell and we get heaven.

Saved and Adopted

Think about it. You were created to worship the triune God. What’s the chief end of man? Glorify God, enjoy him forever. When you don’t engage in worship, you argue against the very thing you were created to do. You’re created to worship him. When you don’t engage in worship, you’re literally going against the very fiber of how God created you to worship him, to be in fellowship with him. You were created for worship. And we set aside one day a week, a couple hours in that day, to what? To worship him. To specifically, solely worship him. I understand there’s a broader sense of worship, every aspect of life, yes. But we’re talking about this part, the 90 minutes to two hours part or so. You were created for worship and the clearest, best place you have to show it is in the worship service. It should definitely be shown out there. But the clearest place is here, and if you can’t do it here, you’re going to be challenged to do it out there. Brothers and sisters, think about it. You have been saved from the penalty of sin. Saved from that penalty. You owe a debt that can’t be repaid on your own. Trillion, you know, we have whatever the national debt is, you know, whatever 30, 40 trillion or something like that. I mean, what, I don’t know what the next number is, is it quadrillion, is that like the next? Okay, like go a [audio unclear]. There is no way we could ever possibly fathom. We just can’t. And what is he? He comes and he pays the debt. Way past the quadrillion. What is he doing? Way past the quadrillion, he pays it. For you and me. He pays it. You’re headed off to jail. It’s called hell for eternity, and Jesus stops the court proceedings and intercedes on your behalf. That’s pretty amazing, brothers and sisters. That is more than reason to rejoice. So you’ve been saved from the penalty of sin. You’re being saved from the power of sin. Many of you have had chains broken in here. Bondage that you’ve been in. God’s been gracious to break those chains and set you free. You’re no longer enslaved to the things of this world. So you have been saved, you are being saved from the power of sin, and you will be saved, guess what? From the presence of sin. That’s going to be pretty amazing. All those things God gifts to every single one of his children in full measure. In full measure. Isn’t that a good God we serve? Not only that, I mean, he does all those things. And he could do that for his servant, which we are. But he does way better than that. And he adopts us into his family. So we’re not just servants of the Lord, which we are, but we’re children of the Lord. We’re children of God, adopted into the family. I mean, think about that. We’ve had people here adopt. That’s a beautiful picture of what Christ has done for us. God sees us, right, John 1, to all who received him, to those who believe in his name, he gave the right to do what? Become children of God. Adopted into the family. All of those things God has blessed us with over and over again. We could go on and on about the majesties of God. We could go on and on about the beauty of Christ. We could go on and on about what the Spirit has done for us. And that should well up rejoicing in our hearts and come out in our words. Loud and clear, no doubt with anybody. So we get the opportunity once a week, every 90 minutes we have to grab on to that. Again back in Philippians when he says be glad and rejoice he’s saying rejoice and rejoice with me. So there’s the idea of individual rejoicing. You’re just going about your day, you’re sitting at your computer at work. I mean you should be rejoicing. But we come together, we’re rejoicing. You’re with your friends hanging out, believers, life group, rejoicing. Why? Because God, because God, because God, because God, because God, because God, because God, he delights in us and he delights to see us rejoice in him. We’re going to have an opportunity. We’re going to sing more than just one song to end the service. So we have an opportunity right now to practice this, to really engage in worship and to rejoice in our Lord. So let’s do that. Will you all stand? Let’s pray.

Closing Prayer

Father, give us a disposition here right now to rejoice in you, to have our hearts and minds set on worshiping you, the one true God, to lift up our voices, to declare your great name to the nations. Lord, send your Spirit now to fill each one of us to worship you in spirit and in truth, to rightly declare how awesome and amazing you are. May we not just do it this one time, Lord, but continue it on and continue it on and continue it on for the weeks to come, not only here but also out there, and all for your glory. Amen.