Monday Morning Music Ministry

1-3-2022

I have imagined that if God composed an employment search, it might read “Wanted: Nobody.”

Wait… what a way to start the new year. An ambiguous phrase. God doesn’t want Nobody (what another way to start the new year — ambiguous grammar). Properly stated, of course, God wants everybody.

He created us all, so it is obvious that He wants us all… to be saved, to commune with Him, to find joy, to experience salvation, to be free from the bondage of sin. Why else create us? He grants us free will… but we nevertheless rebel… and yet He offers us a way to redemption.

He loves us. So much that He allowed His incarnate Son to assume our sins unto Himself and pay the penalties we deserve.

Well, that is the Gospel message. It is His desire that not one should perish; “no, not one.” That the Creator of the Universe should care about you and me is astonishing. Yet astonishingly true. A New Year’s resolution for all of us (any year!) might be to contemplate, meditate, and appreciate that humbling but joyful truth.

So in His own way, thank God (um, literally) He doesn’t need Nobody — He is God, so can do as He pleases. (In fact, most of the people in Bible accounts are “nobodies,” not the powerful or celebrities, whom He chose to do His work. That can be another message.)

But He tells us that as much as we need Him in our lives… He needs us. He needs us. He needs us! Astonishing. Why else would He have created the heavens and the earth — and us? To watch us suffer and die? To cry and wander helpless? To curse each other and curse Him?

He desired instead to commune with us — to fellowship, in prayer and by service. To be an ever-present help in times of trouble. To receive the praise and glory that is due Him, and which will be our fondest desire for eternity. (I can’t wait to join THAT party!)

Yes. Shame on me. What I really mean is that, in God’s job search (so to speak) He wants EVERYBODY. Nobody is too lowly or too high. Nobody has messed up so much as to be out of God’s loving reach. Nobody is too dirty who cannot be cleansed and given a robe of pure white.

And, astonishingly, nobody is beyond Jesus’s sacrifice that serves to wash away all of our sins in God’s eyes. Best of all — you don’t need to take a bath in order to be washed by the shower of Christ’s work on the Cross.

Salvation is a come-as-you-are party!

Well, the proper wording for God’s “employment” search would be, and has been throughout history, Wanted: Everybody.

That is not ambiguous. And that is a way to begin the year, and every year.

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Click: You Needed Me

1-2-12

Another year, another celebration, another “back to work.” Yet if we can remind ourselves each morning that “this is the day that the Lord has made,” we can take a fresh look at 2012 and declare, “This is the year that the Lord has made!”

Let us be glad and rejoice in it!

The Year of the Lord Two Thousand Twelve. Are there challenges that loom up to the left and right? It Dozen matter! And are you one of the folks who make resolutions every New Year? If rules are made to be broken, many of our resolutions seem made to be… postponed.

Well, not surprisingly, the Bible provides all the Resolutions we need to face the new year, day by day:

1 I am the Lord your God… You shall have no other gods before Me.
2 You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything… For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God….
3 You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
4 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
5 Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
6 You shall not murder.
7 You shall not commit adultery.
8 You shall not steal.
9 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife… nor anything that is your neighbor’s. (Exodus 20:2-17 NKJV)

Most of us have problems with long lists. Jesus knew this, and whether He was announcing the cancellation of the Law – since He was its fulfillment – or wisely providing us with spiritual Cliff’s Notes, the better for us to obey and practice, He gave us two Resolutions we can adopt:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:37-40)

Two for Twelve. Happy New Year!

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And to the extent we are able to follow these commandments, keep these resolutions, we must remember that obedience is due to God. Commandments are more for our well-being than for God’s dispensation of gold stars. It is His grace, not our works, that bring favor in His sight. His Amazing Grace. Whenever you need an emotional nudge as a reminder, watch this video – a large orchestra, starting with a pennywhistle, a violin, a bagpipe, then hundreds of bagpipes performing before tens of thousands of worshipers in Berlin. Andre Rieu at a nighttime outdoor concert.

Click: Amazing Grace