When God Sings

The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.
Zephaniah 3:17

This verse gives an important insight into the heart of our saving God. God loves to be the God of deliverance and salvation. The precious promises found in this verse come after severe judgment and justice come among God's people. They would pass through a refining fire. Arrogant leaders and profane priests would be eliminated (Zephaniah 3:3-4). The humble and lowly would be left with an attitude of seeking the Lord (Zephaniah 3:12). Then salvation would work again among God's people.

I love the three ways this affects God. 1) He rejoices over the people whom He has saved and who now serve Him. Our salvation and service bring joy to the heart of God. 2) He will quiet the hearts of His people by His love. He enters into a relationship with us that brings peace and love into our troubled lives. He settles us down. 3) The wildest part of this is that God will break out in exultant, loud singing over our salvation! He sings over us. Imagine that! We worship Him in song in our humble praise, but God loudly sings over us when we are saved by Him. Salvation's joy is a duet, song by man and God!


- Posted with my iPad. The Apple Kool-Aide tastes fine.

joy in making disciples

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

3 John 4

A disciplemaker’s heart is filled with a nearly inexpressible joy at the witness of a life that is walking the walk of a follower of Jesus. This is an ancient joy and a reward of the faith. It grips John the Apostle as he wrote these words in the shortest and most personal of his epistles.

He writes to a disciple named Gaius. We know nothing of him except what can be discerned from this text. He was loved by John and he was a faithful follower of Jesus. His Christian testimony was one of faithful commitment that expressed itself visibly. He may have been a church leader, but not necessarily a pastor or elder, given the situation that John addresses in 3 John 9-10.  It appears that this letter to Gaius was meant to address an issue in a local church that existed back then. And I believe it led to a successful outcome, which is way it survives for us to read it today.

The testimony of this faithful saint was known to John. And it brought him joy. That sort of joy is known by those who help others grow and mature in Christian commitment. It is known by Christian parents as they witness the work of God in their kids. Then there is a joy as ther children literally learn to walk in the truth.

I have the unique privilege of sharing in this joy in an entire church. As a pastor, I work in the spiritual experiences of dozens of people at any one time. I honestly have to keep notes so as to not get the details of one life mixed up with another! But that administrative detail is not the point of ministry and it is worth it, mixed as it is with both the sorrows and pleasures of life. Most Sundays I can look out across a large congregation and feel this surge of joy in my heart at what God is doing in lives. I know more than a lot of people do about the details, and the details are amazing.

There is nothing else in life quite like this. It is hard for me even now to put it into words this morning. It is, as I have written, an ancient joy. And it does not compare to the joy that most be in God’s heart!

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Fear & Joy & Worship

So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him.
Matthew 28:8-9

There were three clear emotional responses to the news of Jesus' resurrection that swept through the first people to hear the news. These two women were privileged to find out first that Jesus had indeed conquered death. And there immediate response after being told by the angel that Jesus is risen and that His disciples should meet Him in Galilee was to run with the news to the disciples. And the driving feelings were adrenaline filled! They were filled simultaneously with the conflicting feelings of fear and great joy! And that is really the kind of thing that happens in my heart when I contemplate the reality of Christ's life in me. It is fearful thing to know that He has destroyed death: the great fear of my heart. It is also a joyful thing, because this great God Who has suffered and died for me also loves me enough to provide safe passage into eternity by His blood.

The fear and the joy were deeply felt as they ran from the tomb. And then they ran smack dab into Jesus Himself. And those feelings welled up into the most expressive and personal worship they had ever known. They threw themselves down at His feet, hugged themselves around His ankles and worshiped Him. The fear, the joy, the wonder, and the thrill of it all fell into that marvelous act of complete surrender to His authority. And how wild that moment must have been. They were simply greeted by Jesus, almost nonchalantly, and they were profoundly affected by the sight of the One Who is our victory!

My risen Lord is worthy of my worship. He will come to me in my day as well, not dramatically, but in simple greeting. He has done so just in the last few moments as I have done the "simple" act of opening His Word, reading the text, and letting Him speak clearly to my heart. And there is a tingling of awe and joy that leads to worship. It is an important daily experience of that which is ultimately transcendent. It is fear and joy and worship.

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Joy woven from sorrow.

And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.
Genesis 45:7-8

I believe that the tears of joy that Joseph wept at his "unveiling" to his brothers came from two sources. The first was the joy in seeing the change that was occurring as circumstances and age began to humble his brothers. This was for him a moving moment, considering that he had endured slave status, had been falsely imprisoned and forgotten there, and had been exalted not only to Pharaoh's court, but to chief administrator of the surplus wealth of Egypt. His life was an emotional rollercoaster! This was just another part of the ride.

But the second source of the tears of joy is pure spiritual insight. Joseph has managed to slowly stitch together how the providence of God has cared for him and his family. This is overwhelming. God used the most horrendous things that happened to an innocent young man for His glory and the salvation of many souls. Think about all the bad actions God managed to weave around in order to sovereignly provide for His covenant with Israel. Joseph was favored unfairly by his dad, creating family strife. God gives the young man revelatory dreams to help him cope and serve notice to the family of a future for him. Joseph has no control over his brothers' disdain. He is sold into slavery, and God sends him to the captain of the Pharaoh of Egypt where he excels. He is falsely accused of sexual assault, God makes sure that because of Potiphar's status, Joseph ends up in a royal prison where he eventually interprets the dreams of two members of Pharaoh's court. Then God uses the dreams of Pharaoh to pull Joseph from the pit to the position of prime minister over all of ancient Egypt in one day. God uses the famine to bring Joseph's family back to him, where he serves in power, and the dreams of a boy are brought to fruition for the glory of the God of the covenant.

God's providence is beautiful. It brings joy. It moves us with emotion. It must, for when we see the wisdom of His ways, we see His love, His holiness, His justice, and His power. All of that is condensed down to this intense moment that Joseph has with His brothers. All that they had done that was bad, had somehow been turned by God for His purposes. He cannot change. He will not be undone by human will, no matter how bad we sin. And Joseph knew this. It was literally the story of His life.

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