Monday, August 8, 2011

Why Church - Part 3

Still plugging away at getting this series up-to-date...

In part three we looked more in-depth at Psalm 92. We have been using verse 13 as a foundational scripture to this series -- that those who are planted in the house of the Lord will flourish.

Let's look at what it says in verse 12, "The righteous will flourish like a palm tree..." Have you ever had a palm tree blow over in one of our monsoon storms. It is not likely you have. I had a mesquite tree in my yard that would blow over in almost every light breeze that came through. But the palm trees can bend and sway through the storms of life.

When you are grounded in God's house you can bend and sway when the storms come, but you won't be knocked over. You survive the storms!

Some people approach the church as a potted plant. They believe they are rooted in their "own" belief in God and go to church when they want to or hop from church to church following this "move" or that "move." When we had a major wind storm come through last month I had a potted plant in the back yard. It ain't there any more. It may still be in it's nice little pot, but it may be in Albuquerque by now.

Verse 14 says that those planted will bear fruit in their old age. Once I turned 40 I became more interested in scriptures like this one. We are seeing that living a long and fulfilling life into our later years is connected to our being planted in God's house. It helps keep a sense of purpose.

In Luke 2 we find that Jesus, as a child, was missing. His family had come to Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover. While Mary and Joseph are on their way home they notice that they forgot Jesus! So they come back to Jerusalem to look for him. They find him in the temple "confounding" the people there -- at 12 years old!

When they confront him he responds by saying, "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" Where would Jesus be except at church?

If you remember the movie "City Slickers" you may remember Curly's advice to find your "one thing." King David tells us about his one thing in Psalm 27:4 when he says, "One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life."

He understood that the best thing he could desire would to be in God's house. He wanted to dwell in the "sanctuary." We call the auditorium a sanctuary because that is what it should be for us -- a place to go and feel safe, be lifted up and recharged.

May we all have that same desire to dwell in God's house.