How Does Deuteronomy Help Us Rejoice in the Lord?

As our name suggests, Desiring God Church emphasizes the importance of our delighting in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We often quote verses such as Psalm 16:11 and Philippians 4:4:

In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.

But consider how often we find similar commands in the book of Deuteronomy – often prescribing rejoicing during the regular feasts or when bringing tithes and offerings:

Deut. 12:7 (NET): Both you and your families must feast [at the place God designates] before the LORD your God and rejoice in all the output of your labor with which he has blessed you.

Deut. 12:12 (NET): You shall rejoice in the presence of the LORD your God

Deut. 12:18 (NET): In that place you will rejoice before the LORD your God in all the output of your labor.

Deut. 14:26 [When the people bring their tithes to the place God designates]: You shall eat there before the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household.

From Deut. 16:10-15: Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the LORD your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the LORD your God blesses you. 11 And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, at the place that the LORD your God will choose, to make his name dwell there…. 14 You shall rejoice in your feast…. 15 For seven days you shall keep the feast to the LORD your God at the place that the LORD will choose, because the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.

Deut. 26:5-11 [When the people offer from their first harvest in the Promised Land]: You shall make response before the LORD your God, ‘A wandering Aramean was my father. And he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number, and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous. 6 And the Egyptians treated us harshly and humiliated us and laid on us hard labor. 7 Then we cried to the LORD, the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8 And the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great deeds of terror, with signs and wonders. 9 And he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10 And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground, which you, O LORD, have given me.’ And you shall set it down before the LORD your God and worship before the LORD your God. 11 And you shall rejoice in all the good that the LORD your God has given to you and to your house, you, and the Levite, and the sojourner who is among you.

Deut. 27:7 [After crossing the Jordan and building an altar]: You shall sacrifice peace offerings and shall eat there, and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God.

From these and related passages, consider four observations that help us today to rejoice in God:

First: Rejoice corporately! In our individualistic culture, we easily internalize commands such as Philippians 4:4: “I must rejoice in God in myself!” In contrast, all the quoted passages refer to rejoicing in God together with others. So today we should rejoice together in God not only in our worship services but also at our meals, at family events, at gatherings in our homes. By so doing, we help one another also to rejoice internally.

Second: Recognize that all you have is a gift from God! God owes you nothing. You have earned nothing. As the excerpt from Deuteronomy 26 emphasizes, only a handful of people went to Egypt, and God multiplied them, making them a great nation. Then He rescued them from oppression and by His power brought them into a fruitful land. Just so with us. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, and by His great mercy through the work of His Son He made us alive in Jesus. Every breath, every heartbeat, every morsel of food is an undeserved gift from God.

Third, and related: Recognize that even what you “earn” is a gift from God! Deuteronomy 12:7 says we are to “rejoice in all the output of your labor with which he has blessed you.” Thus, even what seems to result from our work is a blessing from God. Deuteronomy 8:17-18 elaborates on this idea: “Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth.” If I produce more output than others through diligent work, that doesn’t mean I am better than others, or that I deserve the additional output. Rather, the diligence and the ability to work well are gifts that others do not have. I should therefore rejoice in God all the more.

Finally: Rejoice in the Giver rather than the gift! When they prosper, the Israelites are to rejoice in the giving of tithes and during their regular feasts as repeated reminders of the One Who is Himself good and holy and loving. The houses, the herds, the flocks, the silver, the gold, health, children, protection – all these are pointers to God. Just so with us. Every good and perfect gift is from Him (James 1:17). We must not be like the thousands in John 6 who ate the miraculous bread and simply desired more, failing to see what it signified. Rather, we can take the occasion of every delight – cardinals at the feeder, sunshine on new leaves, a whiff of Clematis flowers, a brisk early-morning walk, tasty cobbler, a toddler’s smile – and rejoice in our trinitarian God, from Whom, through Whom, and unto Whom are all these joys.

[All quotations are ESV unless otherwise indicated.]

All Good Is Because of Jesus

Listen carefully to what our Lord Jesus says:

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:37-39)

That is: If we love anyone in our family more than we love Jesus, we are dishonoring Him; we are therefore not worthy of Him. If we do not deny to ourselves whatever prevents us from following Him closely, we are dishonoring Him by implying that these activities or people or pleasures are more important, more vital for us than He is; we are therefore not worthy of Him. Indeed, Jesus goes on to say that to succeed in everything we put our mind to in this life, but to lose Him, is to lose everything, to lose the only true life, and thus to fail at what is most important; but to give up whatever is necessary to follow Him – even what we think is the way to success, to joy, to fulfillment – is to find true life, what is most fulfilling and joyful.

Note first: If Jesus said these words and was not Immanuel, God with us, God in the flesh, He was not a great teacher or even an admirable man; these are the sort of words that cult leaders say to their followers. But if He was who He claimed to be, then these words point us to our greatest joy, our greatest good.

Second: Think of what Jesus is saying about family, and about all other good things in this life:

  • Family is a great gift. We are to honor our fathers and mothers (Exodus 20:12). We are to rejoice in our children, seeing them as gifts from God (Psalm 127:3-4).
  • Fulfillment in life is a great gift (John 10:7-10).
  • Accomplishment is a great gift (Proverbs 3:5-6).
  • Riches and honor and health are all gifts (1 Chronicles 29:12).
  • The ability to work hard is a great gift (Deuteronomy 8:18).

So if all of these come from God, what is the problem with loving them?

The problem is seeing them as something other than what they are, gifts. We don’t earn them. We don’t deserve them. We don’t create them. They are granted to us by a gracious God “who makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). And He grants them to us – to all humanity – only because of Jesus.

Why only because of Jesus? Because God would have been perfectly righteous to have ended the human race with the first disobedience of Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:17). There would have been no more grace, no more gifts to men. But because He planned to crush the head of the serpent via Jesus, the descendant of the woman (Genesis 3:17), because He planned to send forth His Son in the fullness of time for the redemption and adoption of His people (Galatians 4:4-5), and because the redemption through Jesus would redound to the praise of His glorious grace (Ephesians 1:3-14), He spared them, instituted His Great Plan, and for millennia has granted undeserved gifts to all of mankind. Apart from Jesus, therefore, we have none of these gifts.

But Jesus is not only the source of all these good gifts, the reason we have any good – He Himself is far and away the greatest good.

Thus, while family is a great gift, Jesus is both the Brother par excellence (Romans 8:29) and the true Husband that every good marriage points to (Ephesians 5:25-32). While accomplishment and honor are great gifts, Jesus defines the greatest accomplishment and grants the only honor worth having (2 Timothy 4:6-8).

So, when we see Jesus for Who He is, we find that in Him we have unspeakable joy (1 Peter 1:8) – joy that is found nowhere else. Therefore, thank Him continually for His gifts – and gladly give them all up if that’s necessary to follow close to Him.