Date: December 1st 2009

Son-day

We should worship God every day!
Why?
Because, every day is a Son-day!

Most of us think of the day of “rest” as being Sunday, but it isn’t for everyone, not even those who we may go to the same church with. For instance, my husband Jim and I both work on Sunday. Jim’s normal two days off are Monday and Tuesday, and many times mine are the same. If we’re going to have a day of “not doing,” it’s usually when most people are getting back to the “doing” in their week. Most times it’s still possible to attend church on Sunday morning though, sometimes picking up our grandchildren on the way, and then grabbing a quick breakfast with them afterwards before our work day begins. It’s a special day to us, joining with our friends to worship God.

On a recent Sunday, my heart was saddened as I made the drive to church. Why? Because, the freeways were so empty. So, so quiet…and I wondered if God was saddened too. I’ve seen those same freeways Monday through Friday packed with commuters, and I wondered if it broke God’s heart that so many would rise out of bed early on a weekday fighting the heavy traffic on the way to work, but come Sunday, too many stay home with no interest in joining together to worship Him. How sad is that? Where is our passion for God? How can we care so little about our Creator? How can we take God’s unconditional love for us so for granted? Not that we can’t be at home worshiping God, I did just that this last Sunday—choosing to stay home and spend time alone with God, or having a home church as my brother and his wife do.

“Biblical fellowship is experiencing life together. It includes unselfish loving, honest sharing, practical serving, sacrificial giving, sympathetic comforting, and all the other ‘one another’ commands found in the New Testament.” (Rick Warren)

"For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them."
(Matthew 18:20 NLT).

Recently, our pastor spoke about those who were not sitting with us on Sunday morning in church. He asked us to think about our neighbors and how many of them we thought were in church that morning? I can attest to the fact that the neighborhood roads are not busy here where we live when we leave for church on Sunday morning. They are quiet, as are the freeways. When our pastor said we were the rebels, those of us sitting in church, I liked it. I’ve never thought of myself as a rebel, but we church goers are the ones rebelling against the ways of this world. We are the ones going against the norm on Sunday morning and driving on the empty roads to church. We aren’t the goody-two shoes, we are the James Deans of Sundays…and it feels kind of cool! My brother reminded me that James Dean’s last movie was, “Rebel Without a Cause.” Well, we are the true rebels, but one thing we are not, are rebels without a cause…we cruise to church on empty freeways knowing what the “cause” is…it’s to gather together with other believers, learning more about our purpose here on earth, showing gratitude for what Jesus died to give us, and to encourage each other in our faith.

As I talked with a friend just this last week, she admitted her church attendance was lacking, and I remembered a story about charcoal in a fire—remove a piece, separate it from the rest of the fire and it will grow cold out there alone…put it back into the burning embers and it will glow again. We need each other in the body of Christ, and we need a place to gather together out of the cold world. Plus, we need every day to be a Son-day, not just Sunday, because Jesus brings peace and joy to every day. The Holy Spirit keeps God’s fire ignited in our souls every day, filling us with hope.

Do we realize that when Jesus came to earth He showed us how life is done here? How we are to worship our Father every day, how we are to walk this earth in love, how we are to die trusting God because even in our dying we can live again? Do we realize how much Jesus had to love us to suffer and die for us? We weren’t created to die, it feels so wrong. We were created to live forever, but things got messed up in the Garden, and now the death rate is 100 percent. There’s no denying that. But God then sent His Son to this earth to show us what to do with our lives, what to do with what we’re left with on this earth with all the sin and destruction and sadness we all live in, and through, and with. Jesus lived out the perfect life, He died, and He rose again. We can’t live a perfect life here, but we can live perfectly forgiven. We will also die, and we will live eternally with our Father as believers in Jesus Christ. Jesus demonstrated that for us. It’s not easy for us here, and it wasn’t easy for Him. Jesus sweat drops of blood while praying about what was to come—He knew suffering, He knew sorrow, He knew pain…He understands what we are going through here on earth.

So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven,
Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High
Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same
testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of
our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace
to help us when we need it most. Ephesians 4:14-16 (NLT)

In reading Romans 3:23 today, I was focusing on how all of us have sinned, all of us have fallen short of God’s glorious standard. In verse 22, it talks about how we are saved by Jesus Christ, He took away our sins, and “all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done.” (New Living Translation)

That’s such good news for so many of us! How many times have we thought that some sins are just too big to be forgiven? Of course we think murder can’t be forgiven, right? And suicide? And kidnapping, or any number of heinous crimes we hear about on the news… But the Bible says, “…we can all be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done.” All sins can be forgiven…not some, not just little crimes, or those who are just prone to lying, or those who talk is foul, or those who do mean things…God’s grace is big enough to forgive it all! The Bible says that God’s grace through Jesus Christ covers everything! The only thing it doesn’t cover is the unforgivable sin which is:

1. Murder
2. Blaspheme against the Holy Spirit
3. Unbelief
4. Worshipping the devil

The answer is: B,C, and D…because the only way we aren’t forgiven is when we won’t receive the forgiveness that’s being offered to us through Jesus Christ’s atonement on the Cross for our sins. Unbelief simply means, we don’t believe and we therefore won’t receive the gift of eternal life. Worshipping the devil means the same thing, we don’t trust in Jesus. Blaspheme against the Holy Spirit goes against what a true believer would do, once again, unbelief. We may not like it, but we will see big sinners in Heaven and we will see small sinners in Heaven, because we will see all sinners in Heaven except those who have not received the forgiveness offered through Jesus Christ on the Cross. God alone knows those whose hearts are truly repentant and have received Him, we cannot be the judge of who truly believes and who doesn’t.

“I tell you the truth, all sin and blasphemy can be forgiven, but anyone
who blasphemes the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. This is a sin with
eternal consequences.”
Mark 3:28-29 NLT

So, that’s it! It’s pretty clear cut…all other sin, besides blaspheming the Holy Spirit, is washed away in the blood of our Savior when we believe. Not because we’re good people, but because of Who God is, and because He is bigger than who we are and what we have done…God is our Creator. He is our Redeemer. He is our Friend. God is all we will ever need because He is God, after all, and the weight of Jesus’ life and His death on the Cross far out-weighs anything we could ever do on this earth against one another, or even against ourselves. It’s all forgivable. We don’t have to like it, but we’re not the ones making the rules on earth, God is. And what He says was written in stone, the Ten Commandments were brought down from the mountain by Moses.

Ahhh, yes, the “thou shalt nots…” What about those? Well, even God’s Word says in Romans 3:20, “for no one can ever be made right in God’s sight by doing what his law commands.” What? Confusing isn’t it? It doesn’t have to be though, if we understand what it says right after that, “For the more we know God’s law, the clearer it becomes that we aren’t obeying it.” God gave us the law so we could know how far away we are from hitting the mark, from being perfect, and the closer we get to God, the more we know Him, the more we realize just how far away we are from His perfection. We realize that we are not fit to stand before the Almighty on Judgment Day without Jesus Christ as our Redeemer. The only way we can stand before our Father, forgiven, is to allow Jesus to wash us clean of all sin before we get there…which brings us back to Sunday, or Son-day, as this message is entitled. Jesus loves us every day of the week, and He wants us to love Him every day, not just Sunday. He wants us to know Him, to depend on Him, to understand His great gift to us of eternal life every day of our life here on earth. It is the only way to live a truly abundant life even in the midst of the chaos that can fill our days.

Life is not going to be perfect, we are not going to be perfect, but God is perfect. He knows how we struggle; He knows that expecting us to follow His laws of perfection every day would be like asking a two year old to behave like an adult, which is pretty near impossible. Many of us will try our best to be at our holiest on Sunday, put on a happy smile, a nice outfit, and make our way to church. But there are also many who ignore Sunday altogether, who never attend a church because they are afraid if they even enter a church on Sunday the walls might just fall down on them. But, we’re all missing the main point if we think our relationship with our Father is just about Sunday; it’s about every day being a Son-day.

Just this last Sunday we took our two grandchildren ages three, and almost two, to church with us. Afterwards, we took them to breakfast…and believe you me, they don’t behave like adults! They behave perfectly for what they are, small children. The food took longer than normal to arrive, so we tried to keep the two entertained until it got there. This was a scene out of our past, and we used to take a “Restaurant Bag” with us when we ate out with our three boys. In the bag were toys that were only played with when we went out to eat, and although there was nothing hugely exciting in the bag, it was exciting to the boys who had not laid eyes on those items since the last time they’d eaten out. But, as I read Romans 3 and how we all fall short of God’s glorious standard, I thought of children in a restaurant, and how they get squirmy, and how they eat their food and syrup ends up in places it wasn’t meant to be, and I thought of how cute these young children are to us because we love them so, just as God loves all His children…even though we, as adults, get squirmy and messy and end up in places we were never meant to be. God loves us, and He forgives us, and He’s provided the best thing possible for us to behave while on planet earth, His Holy Spirit living inside of us. The Holy Spirit goes wherever we go, as believers in Jesus Christ, and He guides us. He shows us how to act grown-up in a crazy world full of hurt, and despair, and suffering—and how to enjoy the blessings, and beauty, and the hope He’s left us with. The Holy Spirit is our “Restaurant Bag” full of exciting things to help us through this life if we will make every day a Son-day.

God knew we’d even get confused on what day to worship Him, just as we get confused on what rules to follow, or not, and how to behave, or not, and I believe He wants us to know that the bottom line is very, very, very simple:

Jesus

Our Father in Heaven “declares sinners to be right in his sight because they believe in Jesus.” Romans 3:26 (NLT) That’s for every day. We need God’s love every day as His children, and He longs for us to know of His love every day. God doesn’t think it’s strange that we act the way we do. He says:

“No one is good—not even one.
No one has real understanding; no one is seeking God.
All have turned away from God; all have gone wrong.
No one does good, not even one.
Their talk is foul, like the stench from an open grave.
Their speech is filled with lies.”
Romans 3:10-13 (NLT)

There’s never been a perfect two year old, and there’s never been a perfect adult, except for Jesus. We are far from God’s perfection—but our hearts can be close to Him through His Son, Jesus. It’s not an excuse to sin, because we know we’ll get “away with it.” It’s a reason to love our God more and more each day, because He is showing us what true love is.

The other day the sun was shining and the raindrops were falling. Jim and I got out of the car to walk into the grocery store, and we stopped to look up into the sky for a rainbow, but we didn’t see one…but it was there because rain, plus sunshine, equals color. I said to Jim, “Maybe we’re standing at the end of the rainbow, right where the pot of gold is said to be.” Maybe someone farther away saw the rainbow we stood under, and they could see where it ended on earth, and they wanted to be in our shoes…where all the wealth and riches might be… We all can be there, at the end of the rainbow, when we love God and embrace His love every day of our lives. It’s a rich and welcoming place to be.

Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
There’s a land that I’ve heard of
Once in a lullaby….

Somewhere over the rainbow there’s a land full of rebels, and there’s a party going on!! The party’s not in the “land down under,” as some would have us believe. As followers of Christ, let’s get the party started here! We have reason to celebrate!!

If we who do believe would treat every day as a Son-day by focusing our hearts on Jesus and modeling our lives after Him, then the traffic on our freeways on Sunday morning might change drastically. It could make the Monday-through-Friday traffic seem like an empty freeway. They’d have to start opening up the car-pool lane on Sunday too, and maybe even put in two lanes for car pools because most people would be traveling with their families to church! We’d have to leave extra early to get to church on time! Oh, what a problem it would be, freeways full of rebels who long to worship God together. Go God!!

Believers have a cause, we have more than a cause…we have the greatest reason to live this life—knowing God and loving God, which leads to an eternal life in Heaven! Let’s live every day as a Son-day, then when Sunday comes, our hearts will be right where they need to be…close to God!!

Until we meet again,
Diane