What Can Christians Rejoice In?

Recently hundreds of thousands of football fans lined the streets of downtown Seattle, Washington, to celebrate the Seahawks win of the Super Bowl. Living in Washington State, I also was elated. There are lots of things to be joyful about, and we should be. We rejoice over the birth of a grandchild, our sons or daughters getting married, or someone graduating from college. These and many other events, however, are things that come and go.

For Christians, there are things of eternal value to rejoice over. In Luke 10:17-20 after Jesus sent out disciples, they returned saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us and your name.” Jesus replied, “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” 

No matter how difficult things may get in this life we can rejoice in our salvation. We can rejoice that our salvation is by grace alone apart from works, that we don’t have to earn our salvation. If that were true, none of us would be saved (Ephesians 2:8-9). We can rejoice that we have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God’s Son(Colossians 1:13), and have been saved from the wrath to come (I Thess. 1:10).

With all the troubles in the world and hardships that we face in our personal lives and families, we can rejoice that there is hope and peace, and healing through Jesus. We don’t have to live in bondage to deception. And we rejoice in knowing that we will see our loved ones again who have already passed from this earthly life, who put their faith and trust in Jesus as a personal savior.

As Christians, we can rejoice that “there is laid up for us a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to us on that day, and to all who loved his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8), and that our names are written in God’s symbolic “Book of Life”(Revelation 13:8 and 17:8).

We can wake up every morning and say, “This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it”(Psalm 118:24).

No matter what our life has been like, we can rejoice in our sanctification. Author, John Piper, wrote, “Being sanctified means that we are imperfect and in process. We are becoming holy-but not yet fully holy…The joyful encouragement here is that the evidence of our perfection before God is not our experienced perfection, but our experienced progress.” (1)

As Christians, we have every reason to rejoice!

If you are reading this, but are not a Christian, the Bible says there is rejoicing in heaven over one lost person who has been found (Luke 15:7). I hope and pray that you would be that one person over whom heaven would rejoice.,

1. John Piper, Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came To Die, Crossway Books, 2006, pg 49