It is Sunday. This day has been referred to as the Lord’s Day by Christians for nearly twenty centuries. We would agree that every day belongs to the Lord as He is Creator, Orchestrator, Sustainer and Consummator of all things. Yet I believe the title “the Lord’s Day” is helpful to believers because it reminds us of the validity of remembering that the bible teaches that gathering together in community to worship Jesus Christ is an important activity. Because we love Him, we love what He loves. And He loves His own more than anything on earth so we gather together on Sundays to proclaim that God is great and we are glad.
“The Lord has done great things for us; we are glad.” – Psalm 126:3
Will we choose to be glad today for no other reason but that our great God has done great things for us? He has sought us and found us. He has bought us and forgiven us. He has loved us and healed us. He has cleansed us and embraced us. Let’s not forgive that oft-forgotten passage in Zephaniah 3:17-20 where we see God dancing in joy as He delights in those He redeems. This great God shepherded you all week long and kept you from dozens of dangers you were unaware of. He chose to withhold a palace from you and instead gave you a sufficient home. He put clothes on your back and some rays of His sunshine on your face. He fed you to remind you that you are important than the birds in the air whom He also feeds. That beautiful bible, if you chose to read it this past week, buoyed your heart in moments when fear and worry and hurt sought to undo you. The devil, our enemy, was roaming about and looking for an opportunity to clamp his tenacious teeth onto some part of our lives – but our God did great things and delivered us from the paw of the lion so that we never even saw his teeth or felt his hot breath. We will choose to be glad today. God is great and has done great things for us.
Friends, don’t count the number of heads in the sanctuary to determine if you should be glad. Refrain from numbering the volunteers who are needed before choosing gladness today. Offerings will be collected so that ministries can be carried out today…but do not attach your gladness to what you give or what your assembly might receive. The preacher may go long this morning – be glad, God is great. The preacher may fumble his message and say little of value – be glad that God is great even when the preacher clearly is not. May choirs, praise teams and congregations sing with all their might today of the greatness of God – but don’t forfeit gladness if your favorite songs were not sung or, if they were sung, were not sung professionally. Let us not be like those spoken of in Psalm 106:21, of whom it was said, “They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things…” No, when we lay down our heads this evening I hope we will be able to look back over this Lord’s Day and declare that we were glad in it. Our success would be for the Lord to replay our thoughts, words and deeds and to be able to declare that this child of His lived out today in gladness among others of His gladdened children. He really has done great things for us and today our message is exactly that. Those who do not know Christ need to hear it, see it and feel it as it emanates from our lives. By the way, perhaps those who DO know Christ need to hear it, see it and feel it to because our sense of God’s greatness is easily misplaced when we have allowed something else to seem greater.