Peter takes it for granted that these good people, who had persecution
hanging over them, were still rejoicing greatly in the Lord. He does not
feel it necessary to enjoin it upon them. It is a matter of course in
their Christian life. And you will find that all through the New
Testament this same tone is adopted which recognises gladness as being,
on the one hand, an inseparable characteristic of the Christian
experience, and on the other hand as being a thing that is a Christian
man's duty to cultivate. Now I do not believe that the most of Christian
people have ever looked at the thing in that light at all. If joy has
come to them, they have been thankful for it, but they have very, very
seldom felt that, if they are not glad, there is something wrong. And a
great many of us, I am sure, have never recognised the fact that it is
our duty to 'rejoice in the Lord always.' Have you realised it? I do not
mean have you tried to get up, as I have been saying, factitious
emotions, but have you felt that if you are doing what, as Christian men
or women, it is your plain duty to do, there will come into your hearts
this joy of the Lord. I have told you why you are not happier
Christians, why so many of us have, as I said, only got religion enough
to make you gloomy and burdened. It is because you do not think enough
about Jesus Christ, and what He has given you, and what He is doing for
you and in you. It is because you have not the new life in strong
experience and possession, and because you have not the new hope
springing in your hearts, and because you have not the new wealth
realised often in present possession, and because you have not the new
security which He is ready to give you. It is your duty, Christian man
and woman, to be a joyful Christian, and if you are not, then the
negligence is sin.
It is a hard duty. It is not easy to turn away from that which is
torturing flesh or sense or natural desires or human affections, and to
realise the unseen. It is not easy, but it is possible. And, like all
other difficult things, it is worth doing. For there is nothing more
helpful, more recommendatory, of our Christianity to other people, and
more certain to tell on the vigour and efficiency of our Christian
service, than that we should be rejoicing in the Lord, and living in the
possession of the experience of Christ's joy which He has left for us.
There is one other thing I must say. I have been talking about the
co-existence of joy and sorrows. In one form or another that
co-existence is universal. The difference is this. A Christian man has
superficial sorrows and central gladness, and other men have superficial
gladness and central sorrow. 'Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful.'
Many of you know what that means--the black aching centre, full of
unrest, grimly unparticipant of the dancing delights going on about it,
like some black rock that stands up in the midst of a field flooded with
sunshine, and gay with flowers. 'The end of that mirth is heaviness.'
Better a surface sadness and a core of joy than the opposite, a skin of
verdure over the scarcely cold lava. Better a transient sorrow with an
eternal joy than the opposite, mirth, 'like the crackling of thorns
under a pot,' which dies down into a doleful ring of black ashes in the
pathless desert. Choose whether you will have joy dwelling with and
conquering sorrow, or unrest and sorrow, darkening and finally
shattering your partial and fleeting joys.