| Nov. 22nd, 2006 @ 01:49 am not just an ordinary day in church |
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[by popular demand... that facebook note i wrote on sunday that everyone said should have been an lj post]
I think today's sermon was the best I've ever heard.
This note is long, but I hope that you can get as much out of it as I got from church today.
Maybe it wasn't the most eloquent, perfectly presented message necessarily (though Rob Pendley's usually are), and maybe it wasn't so memorable for everyone else there, and maybe it wouldn't have been for me if I'd been at a different point in my life. But everything just came together. I don't think I've ever been affected like that. Maybe from some of Steve's messages at RUF in the past. But still not quite like this.
I wish I could tell you why it was so good, but I don't know if I can. I knew ahead of time the upcoming messages would be about "singing." (This fall is mostly a series of messages on worship). So I figured "Hey, I like singing (though I'm not good at it), singing in church is cool, sounds fun." Little did I know...
It started out simple enough, a passage from Zephaniah 3 about singing. Israel was commanded to sing because the Lord took away His judgment. So we sing - for joy and wholeheartedly. Next bullet point... God sings. For joy over His people. Here's where it starts to get really good. "Is it possible to conceive of the Deity breaking into a song: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost together singing over the redeemed? God is so happy in the love which he bears to his people." - Charles Spurgeon. "God himself, the Judge, put Christ forward as our substitutionary sacrifice, and when we trust him, God welcomes us with bells on. He puts a ring on our finger, kills the fatted calf, throws a party, shouts a shout that shakes the ends of creation, and leads in the festal dance." - John Piper.
He doesn't just exalt us, He exults; God delights in lifting us up and "leaps with joy." I wish my words could do this justice. At about this point, Rob told a true story he said was often told about a preacher throwing a birthday party for a prostitute at a donut shop in Hawaii at 3:30am. It was just such a powerful story. At this point I was just about gone. Eyes welling up. I heard a lot of sniffing and moving about, maybe I wasn't the only one. "No church throws birthday parties for prostitutes," the donut shop owner said. Echoing pastor Rob Pendley.. Why not? They should be.. that's what Christ Community should be doing. I could really picture what CCC's 'motto' looks like: "Experiencing & Extending the grace of Jesus Christ." I can see now why God placed me at Christ Community Church - why I'm gonna become a member there. To be a part of what God's doing on this planet.
The last point was that the results of our singing are courage and rest. A great point, though brief, and I heard it, but I was too overwhelmed at this point to focus completely. I couldn't make it through the last song (Jesus I My Cross Have Taken). I could sing every few verses a little, and I'm sure it didn't sound pretty, but that's ok. When you're so overcome with emotion and tearing up for joy because God's grace is so real, so powerful to you that you want to share it wherever you go, it doesn't matter that you can't finish the song.
Though I've claimed to be "saved" almost my whole life, I don't think I really "got it" that I was a sinner in desperate need of salvation until the last couple of years. I can say with full confidence I know that God's grace alone has saved me, but today that grace felt so real, so enriching. So Amazing.
So I pray that I will not, in any way, be ashamed of the Gospel. That I'll share it with anyone and everyone. That God's grace will be extended through me. That I can be a part of God's Church, a church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes and so much more. |
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