Pleasing God, Making Disciples of Jesus Christ

We Labor Now. We Rest Later.

PSALM 126:5-6 – Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.”

 

THEME OF THE DAY:  WE LABOR NOW. WE REST LATER.  A very good and necessary discipline in the Christian life is to take time and periodically do a little “spiritual self-examination” along the lines of these two questions; “Why did God save me and leave me in this world?”  The second question is “Am I living out the reason why God saved me and left me in this world?  The answers to those questions come from three sources – the Apostle Peter will answer the first one and the second one by the Apostle Paul with some support from American’s greatest theologian, Jonathan Edwards.

 

Okay, Apostle Peter, “Why are Christians still in this world?”  He replies, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). We are left in this world to proclaim God’s excellencies and that is through lives of worship, sharing the Gospel, and influencing our spheres of influence with the sweet fragrance of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 2:14).  Now the second question . . .

 

The Apostle Paul describes the effort required if we are fulfilling our purpose in this world and it is exhausting – Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord (Romans 12:11); Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58). Today’s scripture affirms Paul’s exhortation to zeal and its cost.  If we are going to fulfill our purpose for being in this world, we will sow tears; tears of burden for the lost and tears of exhaustion from the overwhelming task before us.  And that leads to the support from Jonathan Edwards.

 

He gives us the proper attitude to view all of life. Edwards wrote, “God has appointed this whole life to be all as a race or a battle; the state of rest, wherein we shall be so out of danger as to have no need of watching and fighting, is for another world.”  This is the mindset to not only see all of life but to engage in each day of life.  Knowing our call to proclaim the excellencies of the Lord through His Gospel is lived out on a battlefield, not a playground, arms us with the mindset that tells us we are always to fight and labor to fulfill our purpose in this world.  It is true for the Christian, we labor now. We rest later and that later is heaven when all labor is over.

 

PRAYER: “Father, help me to see all of my life is a call to Gospel labor to sinners and saints alike.”

 

QUOTE: “This world is not a time of rest but toil in proclaiming and living the Gospel.”

 

Because of Him,

 

Pastor Jim