Genesis 37,38; Psalms 7; Luke 15
What Causes Joy In Heaven? … What Causes Joy In Your Church? … What Causes Joy In Your Life? Take a Minute To Read This Before You Go To Church Today!
Scripture
Luke 15
Joy in Heaven
1 Many tax collectors and sinners came to listen to Jesus. 2 Then the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to complain, “Look, this man welcomes sinners and even eats with them!”
8 “Suppose a woman has ten silver coins, but she loses one of them. She will take a light and clean the house. She will look carefully for the coin until she finds it. 9 And when she finds it, she will call her friends and neighbors and say to them, ‘Be happy with me because I have found the coin that I lost!’ 10 In the same way, it’s a happy time for the angels of God when one sinner decides to change.”
Observation
What is your church like?
Do you celebrate when someone gives his or her life to Christ?
Is the focus of your church reaching the lost for Jesus?
We have a few people that get very excited about our music but not excited in the best sense of the word. A few of them come in late and a few of them leave early because they don’t particularly care for our praise and worship time. But the vast majority of our folks love what is happening at Christ Fellowship and at the end of the worship service celebrate with those that give their lives to Christ!
The ones that leave early – or the very few that choose not to even attend worship - I wonder if they even care if someone gets saved or not? They must not have read Luke 15 lately!
One of our older saints who just turned 80 has one of the best attitudes of anyone in our church and it is an attitude that all of us need to have, he says, “It is not my kind of music, but that is OK because I am so excited about all the new people and all of the people giving their lives to Christ!” I don’t want to miss what is happening in our worship service. (Eddy paraphrase!)
He has learned how to rejoice like the Angels do in Heaven! If you and I were up in Heaven right now, and remember I came very close to being there, we would hear continuous praise and celebration all over Heaven over all the people that are repenting of their sins and that are trusting in Jesus.
How does God feel about you when you repent of your sins and turn to Him for salvation? The next story in this text from Luke 15 is usually called the “Story of the Prodigal Son”, but I think it is better titled the “Story of the Prodigal Father!”
The story is really about our Extravagant Heavenly Father and how He lavishes on us an abundant life here on earth, how He pours out on us so many blessings it is impossible to count, and how He promises us that we will spend forever with Him in a place called Heaven, a place that He has specially prepared for us. And we don’t deserve any of it.
We are sinners. We deserve judgment. We deserve punishment. We deserve to go to a place called Hell. But because we have a Prodigal (Extravagant) Heavenly Father we are not going to get what we deserve, but rather we are going to get so much that we don’t deserve! Wow! What a Savior!
Application
I am going to focus and join in on the celebration at the end of the service when someone gets saved and I am not going to critique or fret about what is wrong about the worship service.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, help me rejoice over what makes You and the Angels happy in Heaven. Guard my heart so that I don’t become someone who is critical and mean. I pray for people to be saved today in our worship service. I pray that our church really rejoices at the end of the service with the people that have found a new life in Jesus Christ.
I thank You for Pastor Bruce and his commitment to bring people to Jesus. Nothing is more important to him. It is his focus. I praise God for that! You have been so extravagant to my family and me. I am overwhelmed at Your goodness. You are so good. We are not worthy of such Extravagant love!
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