I am hearing many great reports from people who have been a part of our LFC CONNECTIONS. They have begun to see the value of participating in this simple and new way of building new relationships and connecting with old friends from LFC. If you have missed out, please look for your group meeting again soon. If you have not met yet, your group may be coming up, so check our website and bulletin for upcoming gatherings for your group. As I think back on this past Sunday, it really was a great day for us at LFC. During the evening I was privileged to share in a dessert gathering honoring our Children’s Ministries servants and briefly speak to them. These wonderful people, step up and out and do such a great job, covering three services every Sunday and really touching the hearts of young people with the love of God and His transforming truth.
In our am services, we enjoyed being together and it showed! I love to hear people worship the Lord and there was a great sense of worship in our gathering. The new song: “Amazing Grace” – my chains are gone, I’ve been set free…” was very moving, especially with the elements of communion in our hands. There, in that setting, praises, people with smiles, the warm weather all made it easy to be joyful. But how is your joy today?
Psalm 100 reminds us: To make joyful noise. It actually commands us to be thankful before our God. To sing and have a good SONG going on no matter what is happening. This morning, I was a guest lecturer at Allan Hancock and had the joy of speaking to the speech class. As I drove from the church to the campus, I thought quickly about all the reasons I have to be joyful today. One of which was what I was about to do – speak to students about speaking. A pastor on a Junior College Campus and speaking to students. It really went well and I could have easily viewed it as something “else” that was on the schedule and missed to moment of joy that it really was. Part of the key to Psalm 100 is; Verse 3 Know that the LORD, He is God! It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.
This is our call and our basis for joy. He is God and not you. He is God and we are His people and the sheep that follow Him in His pasture. Today is not all about you and you are not responsible for all of today. It is about God and He alone is responsible for all that happens. We follow and He leads, He carries and we walk with Him. This is the heart of joy. If we miss knowing that God is in control, our joy is diminished. If we miss KNOWING who God is, we miss it all. There can be no true joyful and thankful worship until we know that the One we worship is God - the perfect, holy, sovereign, eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, loving, merciful, gracious, condescending and patient God. Knowledge of such a God will produce a thankful and joyful heart and noise. The word "know" implies usage of our mind to "see" God in His physical creation, in His working in man's lives and in His revelation of Himself in the Bible. It implies we are looking for His presence and not His absence. It implies we are taking note of what He is doing all day long, so that we can simply have fuel for our joy. God who created man with tremendous thinking abilities does not desire unthinking worshippers. He calls us to think and to know and to have joy. Jesus was emphatically clear that the source of a joyful spirit is found by abiding in Him and living one's life for the pleasure of God, our Creator and Redeemer. He repeatedly emphasized that joy is not found in the material things that we possess, but in the things that pertain to God – in knowing God. The world says that joy can be found through a change in circumstances: take a vacation, earn more money, spend more money, or save more money. Or even more popular today is the thought that we should resolve to change ourselves or our circumstances to become happier. Self-help books abound that suggest how we can discover our "new selves" and become more enlightened. Jesus had a different formula for joy. He said, "These things I have spoken unto you that your joy might be full." He was talking about becoming fruitful disciples by abiding in Him as branches abide on a vine. Jesus made it clear that fruitfulness and joy in the Christian life go together. The source of this life is our Lord and Christ. Fruit is the product of what God does in and through us, and experiencing ourselves as channels through which the love and grace and compassion of Jesus flows is a source of tremendous joy. May you see God this week everywhere you look and may it cause you to be joyful.
Be joyful – go ahead and make a joyful noise, Pastor Bernie
In our am services, we enjoyed being together and it showed! I love to hear people worship the Lord and there was a great sense of worship in our gathering. The new song: “Amazing Grace” – my chains are gone, I’ve been set free…” was very moving, especially with the elements of communion in our hands. There, in that setting, praises, people with smiles, the warm weather all made it easy to be joyful. But how is your joy today?
Psalm 100 reminds us: To make joyful noise. It actually commands us to be thankful before our God. To sing and have a good SONG going on no matter what is happening. This morning, I was a guest lecturer at Allan Hancock and had the joy of speaking to the speech class. As I drove from the church to the campus, I thought quickly about all the reasons I have to be joyful today. One of which was what I was about to do – speak to students about speaking. A pastor on a Junior College Campus and speaking to students. It really went well and I could have easily viewed it as something “else” that was on the schedule and missed to moment of joy that it really was. Part of the key to Psalm 100 is; Verse 3 Know that the LORD, He is God! It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.
This is our call and our basis for joy. He is God and not you. He is God and we are His people and the sheep that follow Him in His pasture. Today is not all about you and you are not responsible for all of today. It is about God and He alone is responsible for all that happens. We follow and He leads, He carries and we walk with Him. This is the heart of joy. If we miss knowing that God is in control, our joy is diminished. If we miss KNOWING who God is, we miss it all. There can be no true joyful and thankful worship until we know that the One we worship is God - the perfect, holy, sovereign, eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, loving, merciful, gracious, condescending and patient God. Knowledge of such a God will produce a thankful and joyful heart and noise. The word "know" implies usage of our mind to "see" God in His physical creation, in His working in man's lives and in His revelation of Himself in the Bible. It implies we are looking for His presence and not His absence. It implies we are taking note of what He is doing all day long, so that we can simply have fuel for our joy. God who created man with tremendous thinking abilities does not desire unthinking worshippers. He calls us to think and to know and to have joy. Jesus was emphatically clear that the source of a joyful spirit is found by abiding in Him and living one's life for the pleasure of God, our Creator and Redeemer. He repeatedly emphasized that joy is not found in the material things that we possess, but in the things that pertain to God – in knowing God. The world says that joy can be found through a change in circumstances: take a vacation, earn more money, spend more money, or save more money. Or even more popular today is the thought that we should resolve to change ourselves or our circumstances to become happier. Self-help books abound that suggest how we can discover our "new selves" and become more enlightened. Jesus had a different formula for joy. He said, "These things I have spoken unto you that your joy might be full." He was talking about becoming fruitful disciples by abiding in Him as branches abide on a vine. Jesus made it clear that fruitfulness and joy in the Christian life go together. The source of this life is our Lord and Christ. Fruit is the product of what God does in and through us, and experiencing ourselves as channels through which the love and grace and compassion of Jesus flows is a source of tremendous joy. May you see God this week everywhere you look and may it cause you to be joyful.Be joyful – go ahead and make a joyful noise, Pastor Bernie
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