Deleted Scenes: Romans 8. Celebrating what God is doing

I was having lunch with a friend a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about his job. It’s one of those jobs where once you’re done for the day, you’re done. You’ll never need to think about that day’s work again, you just move on to the next one. I’ll be honest, there’s a part of me that’s envious of that. Having been a pastor in various capacities for 16 years or so now, that’s simply not the reality for me. When you’re working with people and seeking to raise disciples of Jesus, your work is never done. We are all “works in progress”, sometimes taking steps towards holiness, sometimes slipping away. Someone might be solid and growing one month and struggling the next. A church might seem to be thriving and on fire one moment and the next you’re convinced that it might be shutting down for good any day now. That means that it’s hard for me as a pastor to ever really celebrate anything, because there’s always a voice in my head saying, “but what happens tomorrow? What if this is just fleeting?” Someone recently helped me see how wrongheaded that is and how it sets me up for a lifetime of low-level, persistent pastoral anxiety. So I’ve decided to re-start a practice I once had but had let slip away for the last couple of years: a journal of how I'm seeing God work and where I've been encouraged. I want to regularly celebrate what God is doing now, even when I can’t know where someone’s story will ultimately lead. 

This is consistent with what we find in Romans 8, which we spent the last six weeks or so in as a church. Romans 8 is clear that the world is groaning, we are groaning, even the Holy Spirit is groaning in anticipation of God making all things new. However, in the midst of that, we have hope because of the glory that is coming when Christ returns. We also have hope because of the gifts we receive from the Lord in the midst of a broken world. There are all kinds of ways we experience His love even in the midst of trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger and the sword (Romans 8:35). Here are some of the ways I witnessed God’s love this past week, some of the reasons I can celebrate what He’s doing here:

-we baptized 7 people a week and a half ago, and I saw so much joy in those who were baptized. We showed Renata’s testimony on Sunday, and you can see at the end of the video, when she comes out of the water, how she has this huge smile on her face and is just shaking her head in joyful disbelief. It brought tears to my eyes.
-last night, we baptized two women in Kevin and Leanna’s pool. One of them, an elderly woman, is returning to China this month but has been at our church for the last year, without any comprehension of English. However, she was deeply moved by the passion and joy (there’s the word again) she experienced at The Bridge. She also had family members at The Bridge explaining what was going on. In the last few weeks, she announced that she wanted to be a Christian and be baptized. Thank you, Lord!
-at one of the worship and prayer nights last week, I got to pray with a few of our young adults and I got to hear their raw hunger for the Lord to move among us. I saw the Spirit touch their hearts as they worshipped. I was so moved to see people of this emerging generation growing in love for Jesus.
-at the Good Friday service, we had two crosses covered with paper cut-out hearts and a saying on them: “I laid my life down for you, _____, my friend”. The idea was for people to take a heart off the cross and write their name on the blank line as a way of reminding them what Jesus had done for them. It was so encouraging to see how many people eagerly participated, and then something happened that I didn’t expect: people began wearing the heart on their shirts and jackets. After the service, people were walking around treating these hearts like name tags, but with so much more meaning than a typical name tag. This is the identity of a Christian: a friend of Jesus, someone he laid his life down for.
-I was so encouraged to see how many people I didn’t know who came to the Easter Fair. It’s always impossible to count, but we know we had hundreds and hundreds of people in our building on Saturday, receiving an invitation to connect with us more. Kids did a scavenger hunt introducing them to what Jesus did for them on Easter. I love it when I see our church coming together for events like that, serving our community. Laura had 15 Bibles or so on the book give away table, and she said they were quickly scooped up by visitors. There is a hunger in our community that I believe has grown. 
-Easter Sunday- wow! That second service was so full there were people upstairs, on the sides of the auditorium, apparently even on the floor? Some of those people had come to the Easter Fair the previous day and came to a worship service on Sunday for the first time. Easter Sunday is always the best Sunday of the year, in my opinion, and this year was no different. There was so much joy, even in the midst of the “groaning” of this world, because Jesus is the risen king. 

What about you? What have you seen the Lord doing recently that you can celebrate?