Rejoice with those who rejoice

Rejoice with those who rejoice Romans 12: 15

After careful consideration, I am almost certain that playing golf can seriously damage your sanctification!  By which I mean the golf course is one of the best places to halt if not reverse the process of turning the Christian into the likeness of Jesus. The frustration and sheer incomprehensibility of why one minute you are playing like Tiger Woods and the next you hit three shots sideways is a mystery on a par with the Bermuda Triangle.  You start out a happy Christian and can end up full of bitter thoughts, anger and intense irritation.

Your own game can be frustrating enough but rejoicing with your playing partner over their incredible if not incredulous shots can be trying in the extreme. It is always easy to rejoice with those who perhaps have worked hard at their exams and got good results or with friends who have got engaged, married or are having a baby. We can rejoice with those who have got a job or promotion or moved to a new home but rejoicing with those who don’t in our eyes deserve it, is quite another matter.

I have a pastor friend who tells the story of another pastor who felt God was going to give him a new car. This pastor did not look after his present car; it was badly in need of a good clean and a service and he certainly did not deserve a new one. Nevertheless he was given a brand new, top of the range Mercedes. Rejoicing with those who rejoice in those circumstances is hard – it comes through gritted teeth. Or, back to the golf course, rejoicing when your playing partner hits a shot and with a few bounces all round the banks surrounding the green, the ball hops, skips and jumps down the hole!  It is these times of undeserved favour or good old grace that test our capacity to rejoice with those who rejoice.

Yet there is a lesson I have learned that if one can rejoice and congratulate those who do not deserve whatever it is they have got whether it is a new car or a flukey golf shot, something inside of us changes. Complaining about their good luck whether to their face or others just makes us sound what we are – bitter and jealous. Rejoicing with them and others enlarges the place of our hearts and makes us look what we may not be feeling – generous and gracious.

Yet something else also happens. As we learn to rejoice in the most unlikely and undeserved circumstances, we not only look generous and gracious; we become generous and gracious. It starts as an act of the will but gradually our attitudes start to line up with our words. We are all recipients of amazing grace and we rejoice over God’s abundance to us. Rejoicing with others over their good fortune leaves no room for jealousy and bitterness in our hearts but instead increases the sanctification process of turning us a little bit more into the likeness of Jesus

Older brothers

Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. Genesis 37: 5

 Joseph as we know had a lot of trouble with his older brothers who were so irritated by his dreams and jealous of his coat that they tried to get rid of him. In fact they would have killed him if Reuben had not stopped them and so they sold him to slavery instead. David too had trouble with his jealous brothers when he was the one chosen and anointed to be king by Samuel (I Samuel 17: 28). Moses was the younger brother and he had trouble from Miriam and Aaron’s jealousy (Numbers 12). Of course the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son was also upset by the father’s forgiving attitude when his profligate brother arrived home having spent his share of the family fortune.

 Older brothers are sometimes jealous of their ‘baby’ brother and it may go back to childhood. Certainly in ancient Middle East culture much emphasis was placed on the oldest son who would carry on the family name and inherited half of his father’s wealth. So for a younger brother to be singled out for greater things often at an early age such as Joseph or David would have been very galling.

 The church is unfortunately full of ‘older brothers’, jealous of the success of their younger brothers who may seem to be more talented and anointed. Older brothers have real trouble blessing the success of others. I have said this before but others do not need to fail in order for us to succeed. We can all succeed in Jesus. Jealousy leads to awful acts of revenge and bitterness. Younger brothers will succeed despite the attitude of the older brother and the older brother is then just seen to be bitter and resentful.

All of God’s blessings are there for all of us – we do not need to covet other people’s blessing. We need to seek earnestly for our own and bless others in theirs even if they are younger than us either in years or Christian walk or appear to be more successful. Success in the Kingdom is measured though by obedience to what God has called us to do. We must resist the temptation to measure success either by comparing ourselves to others or by worldly standards – wealth, prominence or numbers. We can be a source of such encouragement to others if we only bless their endeavours and rest secure in what God has called us to do.