It is Friday
and Sunday is coming. I trust you had a blessed week in the Lord. It is calm and
tranquil after the storms yesterday afternoon. The birds are singing and making
melodious sounds to the Lord of the heaven and earth. Our youngest daughter
Jessica and her husband Tom are flying to Europe for their summer vacation today
(and no, they are not stopping in England at all). The summer Olympics have
begun in England the land of John and Charles Wesley, William Carey, and David
Livingston. The church of Jesus Christ is engaged in London ministering to the
athletes and the guests who have landed in London. We will meet for worship this
Sunday at 8:30 AM at Wesley UMC and at 10:00 at the Union Center UMC. We will
also be gathering for a summer block party in Binghamton, for food, fellowship,
and worship, beginning at 5 PM. There will be an outdoor adult Baptism service
following the worship service. The location for this event is 14 Broad Street
Binghamton. This one of the occasions when "Church leaves the Building" and goes
out where people live. Pray for us that will be faithful witness for our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ. It is great thrill and joy serving the
Lord.
Robert Louis Stevenson once entered in his diary what he considered to be an extraordinary thing. He said, "I have been to Church today, and (Surprisingly) I am not depressed." Christians are called to be joyful in all circumstances. Christian concepts of joy are different from the world's. The Joy of the Lord is the result of God’s work in our hearts (Galatians 5:22). Christ didn’t come that you might have sadness; He came that you might have a full life. (John 10:10)
The book of Nehemiah records a time when the people of Israel were coming back into their homeland after spending 70 years in exile. They began to rebuild their home in the ‘land of promise’. Israel was regaining her homeland and returning to faith. The book of the law had been discovered and Nehemiah called the people together, and had Ezra conduct a public reading of God’s law. The Israelites had different stages of reaction to the law: First, they fell into repentant sorrow. Second, they began to praise and worship the Lord. Third, they celebrated the “Feast of Booths” as the law commanded. The result was great joy! Nehemiah told them, “The Joy of the Lord is your strength.”
As told in the book of Acts, Paul and Silas sang at night in a dungeon in Philippi with their backs bleeding and oozing from the brutal beating of the day before. They weren’t taunting the prison guards. They sang because they found joy like a fountain bubbling up from within them. Their joy struck their jailor. It was their joy that caught his attention. Instead of the moaning and cursing that suffering convicts usually emitted he heard songs in the night. Their joy demanded an explanation. People whose backs are beaten to a bloody pulp don’t sing, they cry. Cheerfully Paul and Silas told him, “Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” Thus he was invited to the joy of their salvation. In his moment of total vulnerability the jailer found the joy of his salvation.
Robert Louis Stevenson once entered in his diary what he considered to be an extraordinary thing. He said, "I have been to Church today, and (Surprisingly) I am not depressed." Christians are called to be joyful in all circumstances. Christian concepts of joy are different from the world's. The Joy of the Lord is the result of God’s work in our hearts (Galatians 5:22). Christ didn’t come that you might have sadness; He came that you might have a full life. (John 10:10)
The book of Nehemiah records a time when the people of Israel were coming back into their homeland after spending 70 years in exile. They began to rebuild their home in the ‘land of promise’. Israel was regaining her homeland and returning to faith. The book of the law had been discovered and Nehemiah called the people together, and had Ezra conduct a public reading of God’s law. The Israelites had different stages of reaction to the law: First, they fell into repentant sorrow. Second, they began to praise and worship the Lord. Third, they celebrated the “Feast of Booths” as the law commanded. The result was great joy! Nehemiah told them, “The Joy of the Lord is your strength.”
As told in the book of Acts, Paul and Silas sang at night in a dungeon in Philippi with their backs bleeding and oozing from the brutal beating of the day before. They weren’t taunting the prison guards. They sang because they found joy like a fountain bubbling up from within them. Their joy struck their jailor. It was their joy that caught his attention. Instead of the moaning and cursing that suffering convicts usually emitted he heard songs in the night. Their joy demanded an explanation. People whose backs are beaten to a bloody pulp don’t sing, they cry. Cheerfully Paul and Silas told him, “Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” Thus he was invited to the joy of their salvation. In his moment of total vulnerability the jailer found the joy of his salvation.
From what the New
Testament tells us, the evidence of this joy is the litmus test of being a
Christian. The clear and distinguishing mark of the faith of Jesus Christ is
this joy, “unspeakable and full of glory” that results from a life of obedience
to Jesus.
Isaiah wrote
that it is the deaf, the blind, and “the meek that will obtain fresh joy in the
Lord, and the poor among men shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.” There has
always been a common element in popular but wrong religion. Whether in ancient
Israel or in modern America, those things that grab the popular mind, that
brings teeming results, always miss the point of the way of God. Upstanding
Judahites in Isaiah’s day would have protested against any suggestion that they
followed a religion other than the Divinely revealed religion. They maintained
the sacrifices and perhaps carried on other ceremonial functions.
As Cardinal
Ratzinger points out in his marvelous book, "Introduction to
Christianity", the religion of Israel was essentially a religion of faithful
observance of the law. But it was possible to live a way of life totally at odds
with the way God commanded, while faithfully maintaining the system of Temple
sacrifices. The elite of society did this, unaware how distasteful to God they
were. They trusted their prophets, after all. However, God found in the deaf,
the blind, and the poor those who could receive His word. “In that day the deaf
shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of
the blind shall see. The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord, and the poor
among men shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.”
In
Christ,
Brown
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