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I. WHAT IS MEANT BY OUR REJOICING IN THE LORD.

1. It signifies that cordial pleasure, which the serious and devout mind takes in the meditation of God's existence, perfection, and providence.

2. It signifies our receiving a very great delight from the discoveries of His will to us in His Word.

3. It imports our rejoicing in the interests which He has been graciously pleased to give His people in Himself; and in those comfortable and honourable relations which we stand in to Him.

4. We rejoice in the Lord when we rejoice in His continual protection, guidance and influence.

5. Rejoicing in His gracious intercourses with us in the duties of Divine worship, is another thing intended.

6. The lively hope, to which all those are begotten who love God, of fulness of joy at His right hand, and of rivers of pleasure for evermore, makes them to rejoice in the Lord with joy unspeakable.

II. Rejoicing in the Lord signifies that OUR JOY IN GOD IS SUPERIOR TO ALL OUR OTHER JOYS; otherwise it is a joy unworthy of Him, and no way, or not savingly, profitable to us. We can build nothing on such a feeble joy; we have no ground to regard that joy as a grace and fruit of the Spirit, which is extinguished by the joys and pleasures of sense; or so suppressed and overpowered by them, as to have no considerable and lasting effect.

III. WHATEVER ELSE WE REJOICE IN, WE ARE TO REJOICE IN SUCH A MANNER THAT WE MAY BE PROPERLY SAID TO REJOICE IN THE LORD, EVEN WHEN OTHER THINGS ARE THE IMMEDIATE OCCASIONS OF OUR JOY.

1. We rejoice in the Lord in the use and enjoyment of other things, by considering those things which yield us an innocent satisfaction, as the gifts of God, the effects of His unbounded munificence, and the marks of His creative and providential goodness.

2. Our joy in the Lord should be the chief spring of our joy in all the blessings and advantages with which His goodness hath supplied us.

3. The good man's joy in the Lord regulates his joy and delight in other things; being at once an incentive to it as far as it is lawful, and a restraint upon it when it would pass beyond its proper bounds.

4. Then do we rejoice in the Lord, when other joys lift our hearts to Him, are considered and improved as motives to greater diligence and zeal in serving Him here, and increase our desires of enjoying Him hereafter.

IV. OUR REJOICING IN THE LORD, TO BE WORTHY OF HIM, MUST BE CONSTANT AND PERMANENT: it must not vary as our outward circumstances vary, but subsist the same in all the changes of life. It may be we are deprived of health, or perhaps have trouble in the world; however that be, we are still to rejoice in God.

V. THUS TO REJOICE IN THE LORD IS BOTH THE PRIVILEGE AND THE DUTY OF THE RIGHTEOUS OR SINCERELY RELIGIOUS.

1. It is their privilege.

(1) It is a very great privilege and happiness to be able to rejoice in the Lord. The object of this joy is the most excellent in the whole compass of being; the joy itself resides in the highest region of the soul; and the effects of it are of all most extensive, beneficial, and lasting.

(2) This privilege is peculiar to the righteous, or sincerely religious; they only can rejoice in God, and they only have a right to do it.

2. To rejoice in the Lord is the duty of those whose distinguishing privilege it is that they can do it. Let me name some of those things which Christians should practise, in order to their being in an actual disposition or preparedness of mind to rejoice in the Lord.

(1) It is their duty to make their calling and election sure, and by an impartial inquiry into the state of their souls, to decide the great question upon which their peace so much depends, viz. Whose they are, and whom they serve; for if they are the children of God, and serve Him in sincerity, nothing else is necessary to their rejoicing in God, but their knowing it.

(2) It is their duty to remove out of the way whatever things they have found, or their reason tells them are hindrances to this holy joy; particularly these two, a multitude of worldly cares, and a too free indulgence to worldly joys and pleasures.

(3) It is the duty of Christians to call upon their souls to rejoice in the Lord. They are not to allow themselves in a heartless melancholy frame; they must not give way to it, as if it were a temper of mind acceptable to God, and creditable to religion; but must endeavour to chide themselves out of it, expostulating with their own souls as (Psalm 42:11).

(4) They must make this a frequent petition in their addresses to the throne of grace, that God would uphold them with His free Spirit, and enable them to rejoice in Him: they should entreat Him who is the Father of lights to dart some beams of heavenly light into their souls, that they may not sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death; but walk and rejoice in the light of life.

(H. Bonar, D.D.)

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KJV: Rejoice in the LORD, ye righteous; and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.

WEB: Be glad in Yahweh, you righteous people! Give thanks to his holy Name. A Psalm.