THE GREATEST COMMAND
AND SPARROWS

I thought it timely to remind you of two great truths. We need reminding of them because we so often, readily, and easily, forget them. Worse still, we tend to disorder them. I will commence by looking at the lesser of the two great truths which has to do with sparrows. I hazard a guess that you haven’t thought much about sparrows yet today – but my writing to you is not intended to shame you about this neglect. Rather, it is meant to prod you to be wonderful about why Christ would draw our attention to these incredible birds. 

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.
Luke 12:6-7

Jesus said that in His day, two sparrows could be purchased for ‘a penny’ (Matt. 10:29). These seemingly common and very cheap birds were considered to be of very little worth – yet, He goes on to say, And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your (Heavenly) Father (knowing about it). This is how much God cares and sees. But, and it’s a significant but, “But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Matt. 10:30). 

Whenever you feel insignificant, unnoticed, uncared for, consider what Christ has just taught us about our Heavenly Father: He knows you; He notices you; He cares for you; He knows what you need!

This is the second great truth I felt that I need to remind you of now. Ponder this truth well. Let it fill you with wonder so that you become wonderful about your Heavenly Father. This pondering may sound like, as many people have twisted it to be so, that this is about how great you must be. But it isn’t. It is about how great our Heavenly Father is. It is about how loving, caring, generous, and protective Heavenly Father is! 

¶ See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.
First John 3:1

THE GREATEST COMMAND 

When Jesus was challenged by the religious elites of His day, He was asked by a religious lawyer, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” (Matt. 22:36) 

And He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
Matthew 22:37-38

The very thing we need – the very thing we want most; Christ said was the greatest commandment: love! Deprive a person of love and it will cripple them. Deny someone the opportunity to love and it will ruin them. Convince someone that love is determined by their feelings – or even more wicked still – convince them that they cannot choose or control these feelings, and it will seduce them into a trap so deep and so dark that the result can ever be the kind of confusion and disappointment that makes experiencing real love near impossible!

Loving God is so important that He has designed for us to experience facsimiles of it from the moment we are born. When our mothers embraced us to their breasts in those first few moments of touch when air had just rushed into our lungs, we were experiencing love. When they whispered to us in our first seconds of embrace what to everyone else was like mere sounds) we understood perfectly and knew we were loved. When our fathers picked us up and wrapped us in a blanket and cuddled us, we felt his protective strength and knew that we were loved. These experiences of love are designed by Father God to be a sample of, and to introduce us to, His love. It should be the most natural thing in the world then for us to love Him in return, except for the introduction of sin into the hearts of every member of the human race. This is why we need to learn how to love – and especially so when it comes to obeying the greatest command.

HOW WE LOVE WHEN COMMANDED

Love makes the command to love our delight! Because I love my wife, if she commanded me to love her, I would be delighted to do so. When we have a heart to love God, His command to love Him is our delight! The loving relationships we enjoy, or at least observe, here on earth, are the training ground for loving God. I know how my wife would feel if I never spoke to her. Because I love her, I speak with her warmly and politely. To love God similarly involves sharing our hearts with Him in prayer. Because I love my wife, I make it my priority to come home for dinner each night. Because I love God, I make it my priority to be in His House when it’s dinner time to be seated at the family dining table to feast on His preached and taught Word and be reminded of the power of His body and blood as I participate in the Communion. This is what I feel to remind you of especially at this time in your life that the God who sees sparrows sees you and loves you and gives us our greatest command which as it turns out is our greatest need and delight anyway – to love Him.

We love because He first loved us.
First John 4:19

In love,

Pastor Andrew

THE DEAL WITH DUTY OR DELIGHT

F.W. Boreham writes in The Drums Of Dawn of two soldiers both offered inducements to betray their country. The first one considers the bribe then concludes that it is not worth it. His sense of duty toward his country prevailed. The second soldier is offered the same bribe and doesn't even consider it. His loyalty to his country is not founded merely on a sense of duty - but on a love for his beloved homeland. He delighted in his nation and was therefore unhesitatingly dutiful. Jesus also told stories contrasting how we can relate to the Father with either a cold sense of duty or a flaming sense of delight. Why do you go to church when you do?

"In the thirteenth chapter of his Ecce Homo, Sir J. R. Seeley draws a striking contrast between two men. Both are patriots; but one is passionate, while the other is merely a languid, patriot. Each is offered a bribe to betray his country. Both eventually decline it. The languid patriot refuses the bribe after a terrible inward struggle, his fingers itching to grasp the proffered gold. But, in the case of the passionate patriot, there is no struggle at all. He feels that the offer is an insult: he rejects it instantly and with scorn. The difference between the two men, Sir J. R. Seeley points out, is that, whilst the languid patriot is incapable of crime, the passionate patriot is incapable of temptation." (F.W. Boreham, "The Drums of Dawn", 'Remember Lot's Wife', page 205)

Did Jesus fulfil His mission out of duty or delight? The Psalmist foresaw Christ's mission and prophesied of Him-

"I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart."
Psalm 40:8

The difference between duty and delight is largely one of motive. Christ's motive for His mission was not primarily about those He was redeeming - it was based on His utter love and devotion for His Father. In one respect, Jesus has never heard the Father command Him to do anything - even though the Father sent Him to redeem the world. What Jesus heard was an opportunity to delight His Father! 

The contrast between duty and delight features in several of Christ's stories. The best known of these is the story of the Prodigal's son in Luke 15. We are presented with two brothers. The younger brother refuses to continue to be dutiful. He demands his share of the inheritance from his father and takes off. He is neither dutiful nor delightful toward his father. Meanwhile, his dutiful older brother is still carrying on his work. When his younger brother returns from squandering his inheritance and the father throws a feast to celebrate, the older son is outraged. He bases his outrage on duty.

But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, 'Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends.
Luke 15:28-29

If we were to sum up how the father replied to his dutiful older son we might say that he revealed his desire for his son to delight in being with and serving him - not merely serving him out of a sense of gain or duty. I wonder how many people the Father longs to reveal this same truth to today? The Apostle Paul told the Romans to do church with delight not just mere duty when he wrote in Romans 12:11 ~ Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. He said the same thing to the Ephesians with different words -

from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Ephesians 4:16

When we consider how the Lord might want us to reach out to others and see our church grow, we will soon realise that it will involve us showing our delight for our Lord by applying the Apostle Paul's injunctions to show fervour, zeal, and love - not because we are like dutiful older brothers, nay, but because we are glad, reinstated, children of our limitless powerful and infinitely lovely Heavenly Father and we want to bring Him pleasure. 

And let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful.
Titus 3:14

I have seen delight. My family and I had been traipsing across the USA and Canada throughout November 2013. After 30 speaking engagements in churches, seminars, and think-tanks, we had the privilege of just attending a church for our final Sunday in the USA. When we pulled into James River Church in Springfield Missouri it was minus 10 degrees centigrade. But as we did so we were greeted by a young lady serving as a car park director. She was smiling, waving enthusiastically to incoming drivers, and dancing. Dancing! As she directed incoming cars she smiled, waved and danced - and not just when people were looking. She was delighted to be serving the Lord in the car park!

As we walked across the car park to the church sanctuary I walked to this young lady and admiringly said, "You look like you're enjoying yourself!" She responded, "Oh, I am!" That day, despite being told that  Pastor John Lindell was a great preacher (and I'm sure he probably is), he had been supremely trumped by this young lady's exposition of the Biblical word: delight!

Of course, the power of delight is not just a principle for being a fully devoted mature follower of Christ, it is the key ingredient to success in any field. It is variously called, passion, enjoyment, enthusiasm, drive. But it is especially true for any church to grow! When we don't delight in our God and yet serve Him, we do so out of duty. Duty has a lot to say for it, but when delight enters the room which duty occupies, it is duty that is excused to leave the room. And when it does, no one notices because they are preoccupied with delight. This Sunday, may we delight in God by delighting in what He delights in and serve Him delightfully.

¶ ... as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
Ephesians 5:25 

Not because we have to, but because we want to. That's delight compared with duty. That's the deal church.

Ps. Andrew

A DELIGHTFUL DIFFERENCE

If you could choose your emotions, and we all can, then I would like to put in a good word for the emotion of delight. When our emotional team members are selected, delight is often left unpicked for our team. Like the awkward little school-kid who is always the last one to be picked for a side, delight has lost favour with most people today. Perhaps it's because delight is uncool. Perhaps it's because delight is now a little old-fashioned. Perhaps it's because delight unavoidably results in transparency - and transparency is downright uncomfortable! But delight is one of the few emotions that is sweetly fragranced. And whatever it handles, it fragrances with a fragrance that attracts blessings like nothing else can.

So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.
Genesis 29:20

Jacob served Laban seven years for the right to marry Laban's daughter. But because Jacob delighted in the daughter of Laban, it seemed but "a few days". Delight transforms drudgery into enjoyment. Jacob could have chosen to grumble, complain, carp, or whine, but instead he chose to delight. He saw the whyin the what. Delight focuses on the why. The solo mum who has to work two jobs (and be a mother to her children) is able to delight in her work because it means that her children can be housed, clothed and fed. She knows that it is only for "a few days". She serves her customers with a sincere pleasant smile. She helps her fellow workers gladly. She has chosen to delight in her work..

Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
Psalm 1:1-2

Our relationship with God is best enjoyed when we take delight in God and His Word (Ps. 111:2). The introduction to the Psalms (Psalm 1) opens with this reminder. Of all the things that should cause a person to delight - and there are many: our life, our spouse, our children, our work, our garden, our friends, our liesure, our books - there is nothing that surpasses God and His Word. To be delighted moreby anything else is deeply insulting to Ultimate-Source-of-Infinite-Beauty-and-Love. This is why the believer should delight in being with their brothers and sisters in assembled worship because when you delight in God you delight in what He deights in. He loves His church! God delights in His church!

¶ I was glad when they said to me,
"Let us go to the house of the LORD!"
Psalm 122:1

Last week I wrote about my recent health battles. In the midst of fatigue-battles I maintained three non-negotiable delights: I delighted in God's Word. (I have met people who have used their weariness or illness as an excuse to stop feeding their soul with God's Word.) Secondly, I delighted in prayer. (Even though my mind was cloudy and vague, I delighted in praying for others - most probably you.) Thirdly, I delighted in the House of God. The Psalmist said, "I was glad when they said to me, Let us go to the house of the Lord!" I delight in our church - not merely because I am the pastor - but because I genuinely love our church. I love our people. I love it when we meet together. I love that our church loves God and His Word. I delight in our church because God delights in His church!

I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart.
Psalm 40:8

Shorlty after Kim and I arrived in Tasmania, we met someone who told us that none of their non-Christian friends would ever go to church. This is not unusual, but their reason for this sad fact was beyond disappointing. They said that their friends would never go to church after they heard what the church had done to him! When we enquired what happened to him that "hurt" him so badly, it turned out that it was by anyone's reasonable assessment:inconsequential. I wondered if he realised Who was truly hurt by his comments to his non-churched friends? I wonder how many others excuse their despising of Christ's Church when they should be delighting themselves in attending, supporting, and being the Church?

Delight yourself in the LORD,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4

Your job, your marriage, your friendships, your walk with Christ, can all be delightful - if you choose it to be so. It's also worth pondering that we are created in the image of a God who delights and you have your best chance of realising your potential when you choose to bear the image you were created with and choose to delight in the right things. 

No more will anyone call you Rejected,
and your country will no more be called Ruined.
You'll be called Hephzibah (My Delight),
and your land Beulah (Married),
Because GOD delights in you
and your land will be like a wedding celebration.
Isaiah 62:4 MESSAGE

Ps. Andrew