There is no doubt that saints ought to rejoice. Just as birds ought to fly or trees ought to grow and fill their branches with a thousand little buds and leaves, so the saints ought to rejoice. But the joy of God’s people isn’t ambiguous—it doesn’t hang in the air like a cloud, all vague and undefined. The joy of God’s people is concrete, springing from a specific root: the reign of God.
“The LORD reigns, let the earth rejoice…Zion hears and is glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoice, because of your judgments, O LORD.” (Ps. 97:1, 8)
The reign of God is the joy of His saints. It is the object of their constant praise and meditation. When trouble eclipses their vision and they feel their hearts becoming burdened by fear, anxiety, and unbelief, the Lord’s reign is the thing they must fight to return to. It is this truth they must wrestle to keep in constant view.
Without it, they cannot see the world rightly. Evil appears far more victorious than it truly is; the wicked seem immovable, like giants in the land. Righteousness begins to look feeble, fleeting, and tenuous. In fact, the opposite is the case (the meek will inherit the earth, Ps. 37:11; Matt. 5:5), but this is only possible to see when one looks with the eyes of faith. When God’s throne, established in the heavens (Ps. 103:19), dominates our vision, all our foolish fears are put to rest. Only then can we see the righteous and the wicked in their proper place, the righteous being established like oak trees and the wicked vanishing like phantoms (Ps. 73:20).
And so we must rejoice, Christian reader. And our rejoicing must be rooted firmly in the eternal, indomitable, and all-conquering reign of God. In an age when rage-baiting, shrieking, and childish whining passes for public discourse, we must remain composed and stable. Not because we are aloof, but because we are controlled by the deep and pervasive conviction that God has installed His King on Zion (Ps. 2:6). He has raised the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. He has set Him far above all rule and authority and power and dominion—both in this age and also the one to come (Eph. 1:21). He has placed all things under His feet, and this truth is the ground beneath our own.
So take heart, and rejoice in the kingdom of God.
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!
“Jesus shall reign where'er the sun does its successive journeys run, his kingdom stretch from shore to shore, till moons shall wax and wane no more.”