The Dearest Place on Earth

Sorry it's been a couple of weeks, but I actually had some vacation! Anyway, now that I'm back, here is this week's piece. It's about the church, as you can tell.

What’s the best day of the week? Monday, when many folks go back to work? Probably not. How about Friday, when the work week draws to a close for many and the weekend begins? More people would probably say Friday is the best day of the week than Monday.

I wonder how many would say Sunday is the best day of the week.

Just this morning I had a conversation with a member of the church I am blessed to serve, the topic of which was “the weekend.” She lamented how much time Americans waste through the week wishing the weekend would come. Somehow we have come to misunderstand Saturday and Sunday as the days that belong to us for us to do with what we will.

I got to thinking about what Sunday should mean in the life of every Christian. Saturday is the day to get ready for Sunday, to make our emotional, spiritual and physical preparations for the following morning. Way back in college days, before I was pastor, my friend and mentor Bill Mowrey told me, “John, a good Sunday morning begins with a proper Saturday evening.”

What Bill was trying to get across is that Sunday is too important for Christians to let the day simply sneak up on us. We need to prepare our hearts to receive God’s Word, just as surely as the pastor needs to prepare the message to impart God’s Word.

Sunday is the day set apart for the gathering of God’s people to worship Him, hear from Him, and encourage one another by our love. It’s the day to celebrate the mutual miracle of our salvation. It’s homecoming day. It’s family reunion time, when we see again the folks we’re related to by the blood of Christ. It’s the day we are blessed to rejoin with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and rejoice in the manifold evidences of grace we see in the family.

Evidences of grace like these. Last Sunday I saw a new widow praising God exuberantly as we sang to Him, “Here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down.” I saw a middle aged couple who had brought a young husband and wife to worship with them. I watched a college student hug an octogenarian. These were just three of the many dozens of such evidences of grace I saw last Sunday. And I’ll see dozens more day after tomorrow! And so will you, if you go to church with your eyes open.

Nineteenth century British pastor Charles Spurgeon called the church “the dearest place on earth.” I am convinced from scripture and experience that he was right. That’s where God gathers His family under the banner of His love, and shows them the evidences of His grace.

When you go to church this Sunday, will you be looking for evidences of God’s grace? If so, you will discover what Spurgeon said is true: it is, indeed, the dearest place on earth.

Joy and the Excellence of Christ

The most gloriously joy-filled being in the entire universe is Jesus Christ.

To live your life in a radical quest to reflect His glory and experience His joy is the most satisfying endeavor a human being can pursue. Everything else pales in comparison. There is no joy to be found anywhere else under the sun like the joy that comes from the excellence of Christ.

The prophet Isaiah knew this to be true, and wrote this word from the Lord: “Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which doesn't satisfy? Listen diligently to Me . . . and let your soul delight itself in fatness” (Isaiah 55:2). Solomon, wise in the ways of the world as he was, knew this also, and he wrote, “Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 2:11).

So while there is no abiding joy to be found in things “under the sun” (as Solomon put it), there is supreme joy in Christ. And the good news is that Christ Himself wants His people to participate in this joy! On the evening before His crucifixion, Jesus said to His Father, “But now I am coming to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves” (John 17:13).

Did you catch that? Jesus wants HIS joy to be fulfilled in YOU! Amazing! Miraculous! The Son of God, Who from eternity past has dwelt with the Father and the Spirit in the holy inferno of the glory and joy of the three-in-one Godhead, passionately yearns to fill you with His joy! As Alexander Means wrote in his ecstatic hymn, “What wondrous love is this, O my soul!” Yes, indeed. Wondrous and full of joy!

And people think Christianity means weighty obligation! Where do they get such an erroneous idea? They get it from Christians who have never learned or have forgotten that “in [His] presence there is fullness of joy” (Psalm 16:11). They get it from believers who wrongly suppose that their “Christian duty” is unrewarded religious responsibility.

In his “Letters to Malcolm,” C. S. Lewis wrote, “It is the duty of every Christian, you know, to be as happy as possible.” That is what our “duty” is: to be so impassioned with Christ that His infinite delight floods our souls with the overflow of His boundless joy. This boundless joy, this ocean of Christ’s excellence, is what delivers us from the perilous weight of religious obligation, and turns the “got to” of duty into the “get to” of delight.

King David, after being confronted with his sin of seeking His delight outside of the Lord, prayed, “Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation” (Psalm 51:12). All of us should pray that prayer who have been seeking joy anywhere but in the infinite excellencies of Christ Himself. Let us pray it, now.

Joy and Certainty

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot, and praying some, over that little verse in Philippians 1 in which the Apostle Paul so beautifully expressed his confidence regarding the future of the Philippian church. He wrote, “I am sure of this, that He Who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).

That’s pretty remarkable assurance coming from a guy who was in jail! You might also wish to note that this little letter to the church Paul had founded at Philippi has more references to joy than any other book in the Bible. I believe that Paul’s substantial confidence and Paul’s overt joy went hand-in-hand. Let’s take a look at this. How could Paul be so certain?

If you examine verse 6, you’ll note that Paul’s certainty regarding the church’s future was founded upon the church’s past. Who started the church? Was it Paul, or the Philippians themselves? No! God began the work. And Paul knew that what God began, God will finish, even if it takes until Jesus comes back. Thus, Paul was filled with joy in anticipation of God’s exercising His sovereign greatness to complete His work – HIS work, mind you! – for His glory. The fact that Paul was in jail didn’t seem to distract him from this assurance, because, as he wrote to another church, “we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen” (2 Corinthians 4:18).

What has God begun in your life? Did He at some point in your life grant you faith to trust the atoning sacrifice of His Son as the means and guarantee of your salvation? Then He has begun a good work in you, just like He did among the Philippians. So, since that beginning was made in you by God Himself, have you misplaced your confidence?

Honestly, I find the temptations to misplace my confidence are many and varied, and pressing upon us almost daily. That great whisperer of lies, the devil, is determined to distract us and sway our vision from the glory and grace of God. “Trust your common sense,” he murmurs to our worrying hearts. “Rely on your training or your background, your experience or your expertise,” he blithely chatters on, not perhaps in so many words, but in a kind of unformed doubt that creeps into the dark recesses of our fearful hearts.

Believers, let us banish the lies of hell to their source! God’s truth is the source of our certainty, and nothing else will suffice. Has God begun a good work in you? Then, regardless of the circumstances in which you find yourself, He will bring it to completion. And the joy you have will be determined in great measure by how fully you believe Him and how willingly you submit to Him and cooperate with His ongoing work in you.

Next week: Joy and the Excellence of Christ