Dear Church Family, an update for the week of January 31, 2010…
Welcome back to our pastors, some attended the annual conference retreat in Southern CA and the memorial service for Rev. Art Tsuneishi. I had the blessing of being able to attend the very special tribute and celebration of his life in Manhattan Beach on Friday, and I know the Northern CA will be very special too, as we honor this great man of God and support his family on February 27 at 2:00 p.m. at SLZJCC.
Thank you to Grace Vilain for giving the Children’s Message. Sharing from Psalm 100, she warmly and clearly explained the passage using simple vocabulary. The psalms are songs. Praise songs are to be joyful even as shouting with gladness! We worship God through singing to Him about how much we love Him, and about how great He is. Why do we give praise and worship to God? Because we are thankful for how He created us. He is our shepherd, we belong to Him. He protects and cares for us. When believers gather together, we are encouraged by one another. God loves you very much. He will always be with you. Give praise to Him.
Thank you to Dr. Vernon Kam for bringing the message, also from Psalm 100, “Joy of the Lord” through three main points:
A. Joy Psalm 100:1-2 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs. What attributes should the Christian Church, and its members be marked by? In John 17, Jesus prays that His disciples would be marked by joy, holiness, unity, and love. So the first focus point is on joy. John 17:13 …so that they may have the full measure of My joy within them. You don’t have to be a Christian to be a “happy person.” But you do need to be a Christian to have the kind of joy Jesus is talking about. Joy is to be happy because of your communion with God. It is a fruit of the Spirit. Joy shows our unity with Jesus Christ. Are we a joyful congregation? Are you a joyful believer? Some Christians don’t feel joyous. Why is there no joy? They may focus on one or more of these four reasons.
First: Bad things have happened in the past that continue to haunt them. You may have had a lousy childhood. Perhaps you were abused. Or you may have done something you are ashamed of. Or you may have had a terrible, humiliating experience. Or someone did you wrong. 2 Corinthians 5:17 …if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! When we accept Christ, we are new creations. Paul tells us to let the past be the past. There is a new start in your life. Example of Rahab: In the story of Joshua and the battle of Jericho, Rahab, the prostitute, hid the spies. Joshua 6:25 But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute….And she lives among the Israelites to this day. Hebrews 11:31 By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed…Not only did she live among the Israelites, she married one of them and became the mother of Boaz who married Ruth. Rahab is one of the ancestors of Jesus Christ! By faith, she let her past be in the past, and walked a new life. Not only was she forgiven of her sins, but God saw fit to make her an ancestor of Jesus Christ.
Second: Adversity has struck and thrown you to the ground. We may think, “How can I be joyous when this terrible thing has hit me?” Consider what happened to Paul and Silas. Acts 16:22-25 The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrate ordered them to be stripped and beaten. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison….About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God… They were in Philippi to preach the gospel, to do God’s will. They must have prayed for God’s guidance. What happened? They got beaten, flogged and thrown into prison. Yet, in prison they were singing hymns. How is it they could be so positive? Because they truly believed …the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations. Psalm 100:4-5
Third: You don’t get what you want. You may feel, “How can I be happy, be joyous, when I don’t have what I really want?” God knows best what you need and when. Trust in Him. In big things and little things.
Fourth: Shortcomings. Sometimes we make ourselves unhappy, focusing on what we think are our shortcomings. It may have to do with how we look, or our abilities. God made us who we are. He is the potter; we are the clay. Can you accept the basic person you are and praise God for it? Let’s not lose our joy in Christ because we don’t like something about ourselves. Each of us is unique. No one can offer what you can in the way you do it. You may say, “What I have to offer is very small.” That may be true, but whatever you have, no matter how small, God will add His power to it to make it worthy to do what He wants you to do. The example of Moses and his shepherd staff. God added His power to that staff to give credibility to Moses and confidence to do God’s will.
B. Know Him. Psalm100:3 Know that the Lord is God…we are His people, the sheep of his pasture. To know God involves getting into God’s Word. This is not just head knowledge, but knowing Him in your heart. As His sheep, we need to have a leader. David illustrates what a good shepherd does. Jesus said, (John 10:11a) I am the good shepherd.
C. Thankfulness. Psalm 100:4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name. An example of this is a medical missionary in India. No one thanked him because there was no such expression in their language. Instead what they said was “I will praise your name.” Likewise, we should praise His name because we are thankful to Him. No matter what happens, we can be thankful to God. Why? For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations. (Psalm 100:5)
Joy ~ Knowledge ~ Thankfulness. They’re all connected. When you are thankful, you will be joyful. And why can you be thankful and joyful? Because you know Him.
Have a blessed week of joy, knowledge and thankfulness in the Lord,
Stan, for SLZJCC