Dear Congregation,
Once again tomorrow I will look across the distinctly empty pews of the church, and yes I will remember that most of you are watching via YouTube – remembering, how important that is, and none more so than in terms of the grace of God to us through Jesus Christ in whom He is gathering and establishing a people as His people, a people of faith, a renewed and transformed people, a people who worship and serve. As I look down the camera and beyond across empty pews I am saddened and yet encouraged at the same time. Saddened because we are not together, encouraged because we are together in Christ. I am encouraged because of Christ in us. I am encouraged that because of Christ we know that the definitive reality is not that we are separated but that we are together and always will be in Christ.
Remembering the reality of God’s grace is always a vital importance to the shared life of God’s people as highlighted in Psalm 105. In the the opening verses of this Psalm we read:
1 Oh, give thanks to the Lord!
Call upon His name;
Make known His deeds among the peoples!
2 Sing to Him, sing psalms to Him;
Talk of all His wondrous works!
3 Glory in His holy name;
Let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the Lord!
4 Seek the Lord and His strength;
Seek His face evermore!
Did you notice that there are ten commands in these four verses? I have highlighted them in italics for you. It has been said that ‘all of the Christian life is here’ in these commands – worship, evangelism, allegiance, trust, fellowship. These we are to give ourselves to, we are to live out as an expression of our life before God.
But where is the source and impetus for this? The answer is given through one final command – Remember. Notice how the Psalm continues –
5 Remember His marvelous works which He has done,
His wonders, and the judgments of His mouth,
6 O seed of Abraham His servant,
You children of Jacob, His chosen ones!
7 He is the Lord our God.
His judgments are in all the earth.
It is as we remember the “marvellous works” of God which in grace He has done for and to us that we are driven to praise and proclaim His Name. Or to put it in another way ‘What we do for God flows out of what He has done for us’ (Tim Chester).
Here is the antidote for a faltering spirit of praise and for a relaxing commitment to obedience, for the rising fears but also a complacent isolation – Remember! Keep the Gospel front and centre of our thinking. Here is the motive for our striving to be the people who we are to be, a people of God who live because of God’s grace and to the glory of God, and who do so together, a people together.
Then as we remember we are comforted by the fact that God also remembers –
8 He remembers His covenant forever,
The word which He commanded, for a thousand generations.
“He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,” (Colossians 1:13). And there is nothing that can or will negate that.
Together in Christ’s love and service,
John
Your Pastor