WHERE WILL YOU BE ON THE LORD'S DAY?

By Shirley Wiggins

 “The first day of the week, Sunday,  adopted by the early Christians as the day of worship” of the Lord God.  The full phrase “the Lord’s Day” appears in the New Testament only at Revelation 1:10…   Christian worship on Sunday, the first day of the week, was based on the occurrence of Jesus’ resurrection during the early morning hours of a Sunday…”  It has been associated with Sunday observance also with its being the first day of creation.¹

Sunday is the Lord’s Day.  The day set aside for His people to come into His church and hear His word preached, and taught.  A place and time for families.   Families are to love one another and fellowship together, speaking kindly to and about other family members.

As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we become family with our Christian siblings, and under the headship of our heavenly Father, who adopted us into His royal family, we love each other.

“See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are.  For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.  Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be.  We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.  And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” 1 John 3:1-3 (NASB).

On every Sunday, “The Lord’s Day” – the day set aside for its special purpose, we have another opportunity to come together in His house to worship, praise, and sing glad songs to Him and about Him:  His faithfulness and loving-kindness to people.

I wonder, though, as I/we/they/you  (the collective “we”) gather in, each in our own certain churches of worship, when we see each other, what do we see?

Does any one of us ‘see’ with clarity the multitudes laboring under the heavy loads of Life?  Do we recognize suffering when we see it?  Hear it? Touch it?

 Do we perceive the hidden, deep emotions of the people around us:  the loneliness, the desperations, the disappointments?

“On every pew sits a broken heart” – a phrase I’ve heard, and the title of a book by a Billy-and-Ruth-Graham daughter.

I wonder if there might also be as much truth in this rendering of that statement:

“On every pew sits a multitude of broken-hearted people.”

Rare, indeed, I believe it would be to find even one person (man, woman, boy or girl) not laboring under their own personal sorrow.

Jesus Himself was (is) widely known as “The Man of Sorrows,” and the Bible speaks many times, and in many places, of His sufferings.

But, what do we “see” as we come into the church?  Saints?   Sinners?   Slackers?   Repeat “offenders”?   Failures?   “Less-than desirables?”  The Faithful …. Or the Faith-less (in our own opinion)?

Those who do not measure up to our own standards of righteousness:  the undesirables… the un-dependables… the drop-ins and the drop-outs….  The weak and wayfaring ones, and the wandering and erring ones.

The “hypocrites” (how dare they show their faces here?!)?

The outcasts:  the discouraged;  the despairing ones, the dejected, the disappointed, even the dis-jointed ones:   disabled spiritually.

What are we thinking?  Believing? 

What do we see?  More importantly, what does God say about what He sees?

One thing God says in both Old and New Testament alike is:

“For I desire and delight in dutiful steadfast love and goodness, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of and acquaintance with God more than burnt offerings.”  Hosea 6:6 (AMP Bible)

“Go and learn what this means:  ‘I [Jesus] desire mercy [that is, readiness to help those in trouble] and not sacrifice and sacrificial victims.  For I came not to call and invite [to repentance] the righteous (those who are upright and in right standing with God), but sinners (the erring ones and all those not free from sin).”… Matthew 9:13 (AMP Bible).

Mercy -  beautiful and kind compassion born out of grace…The same kind of grace that God gives to each of us.

The very thing each human desperately needs is what God desires…

A related thought:  How much of what ‘we’ are laboring under in the form of our own individual, personal sorrow is the result of a mistaken belief – a faulty view of the world born out of a deceptively false view of the God who made the world? 

The God Who made the world is the God of love, compassion, kindness, abundant grace and forgiveness.

No matter who holds the false and deceptive belief, the ultimate outcome always results in personal sorrow for one or many.

Conclusion:  Sin, by deception, resulted in the death on the cross of Jesus Christ, and from that sacrificial suffering was born the mercy God desires – abounding grace, resulting in the salvation of souls, one by one,  resulting in many.

Let us be sure that we make room on the pew beside us for all of God’s people to come in and feel welcome in the household of God’s family.

“We know that we have passed over out of death into Life by the fact that we love the brethren (our fellow Christians).  He who does not love abides (remains, is held and kept continually) in [spiritual] death…. By this we come to know (progressively to recognize, to perceive, to understand) the [essential] love:  that He laid down His [own] life for us; and we ought to lay [our] lives down for [those who are our] brothers [in Him].  But if anyone has this world’s goods (resources for sustaining life) and sees his brother and fellow believer in need, yet closes his heart of compassion against him, how can the love of God live and remain in Him?  Little children, let us not love [merely] in theory or in speech but in deed and in truth (in practice and in sincerity). … And we receive from Him whatever we ask, because we [watchfully] obey His orders [observe His suggestions and injunctions, follow His plan for us] and [habitually] practice what is pleasing to Him.  And this is His order (His command, His injunction):  that we should believe in (put our faith and trust in and adhere to and rely on) the name of His Son Jesus Christ (the Messiah), and that we should love one another, just as He has commanded us.  All who keep His commandments [who obey His orders and follow His plan, live and continue to live, to stay] and abide in Him, and He in them.  [They let Christ be a home to them and they are the home of Christ.]  And by this we know and understand and have the proof that He [really] lives and makes His home in us:  by the [Holy} Spirit Whom He has given us.”  1 John 3:14,16-24 (AMP Bible).

Let us go joyfully to church this Sunday and listen and learn and pray and sing and fellowship with our family!  God loves to see His family together in His house of worship and prayer. 

Remember, your place is saved there for you, and your family members will be looking for your face in the crowd!

 

 

 

¹The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, ©1987 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.; Grand Rapids Michigan.  Page 662.  See also Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2; Matthew 28:1.