10. To ‘Celebrate and to be Celebrated’
“Honour the Lord with me! Celebrate His great name.” Psalm 34:3
“Religious people find God useful. Christians find God beautiful.” (Keller, 2013)
We need to celebrate who God is before we celebrate what He has done. The two things are inextricably connected, but if we only celebrate what God has done for us, then it is us that remain at the centre of all things. We will celebrate God primarily because of His benefit to us.
Do I celebrate, love, and adore my wife because of what she can do for me or because of who she is? Do I also appreciate all that she does as outcomes of love? Certainly. But that is a secondary factor.
As we lead our communities to celebrate God we must firstly focus on His inestimable wonder and beauty. Then we can rejoice in His eternal existence and what He has done, His power and grace in Creation and redemption and sustaining the universe.
We need to actively recognise that God is worthy of celebration as well as the truth that He is good, and we live in a created universe which is the theatre of God’s glory.
Our first stance is therefore to determine that we WILL celebrate. In a cynical age, it is important, if we think from a Biblical Christian worldview, to begin with celebration. This is something of a counter-cultural starting point. We commence from a stance of deep gratitude, rather than cynicism, pessimism, or despair. Does our day begin with celebrating the beauty and goodness of God, do our meetings and our lessons begin with a sense of thankfulness for who God is?
Celebration is really saying to God: You are everything to us; Your beauty, grace and goodness are paramount. Then it’s celebrating every person because God has created them and brought them to our community. What a blessed people we are!
Blessings
Brian
Reference:
- Keller, T. [@timkellernyc] (2013, June 20) reflecting on Jonathan Edwards: “Religious people find God useful. Christians find God beautiful.” [Tweet] https://twitter.com/timkellernyc/status/347489100917510144