You have been so kind and so good as we've been working through each of these disciplines. Today, we come to the final one in our series, Celebration. But before we get to it, let me back up just a little bit and just cast the larger picture. I want to give you a little acronym, VIM, as in Vim and Vigor, V-I-M. The V standing for vision.
You see, we need a vision of life in the kingdom of God. We need a sense of what Jesus meant when he said, I've come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly. So we see that life.
Jesus who brings to us A reality in the kingdom of God. Jesus Christ is alive. He is here to teach His people Himself. He has not contracted laryngitis.
His voice is not hard to hear. His vocabulary is not difficult to understand. And we can learn to walk with Him.
We can learn to talk with Him. We can learn to receive guidance. for every day. Vision.
Then we need intention. Intention is the clarity of direction about where we are going. William Law, in his wonderful book, A Serious Call to a Devout and a Holy Life, often speaks of intention.
Maybe I could put it this way. Are you intending to sin? People will say, well, no, but we must ask it the other way also. Are you intending not to sin? Because if you have not made intentions not to sin, you are intending to sin.
So intention is saying in the words of the old spiritual, I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back. No turning back.
That's intention. And then we need means. Vision, intention, means.
The means are the disciplines of the spiritual life that lead us forward that we might grow in grace. And celebration is one of the most lovely of the means of grace. It's a discipline, a spiritual discipline.
It's the experience, as St. Augustine put it, the Christian should be an alleluia from head to foot. Or as the lame man in the book of Acts went walking and leaping and praising God. That's a life. It is joy. You see, when the life has been changed, when the destructive habit...
has been conquered, when the marriage has been restored. You see, it's joy by God. It's joy. And it is by God, and no other way.
So this is the life. You were mentioning about Evelyn Underhill, Margaret. Yes.
And her... She gives a little quote that I'll... Yeah.
She writes, and I'll quote, The spirit of hurry and the spirit of joy do not reside in the same house. The spirit of hurry and the spirit of joy do not reside in the same house. Yes.
That's good. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I like that. Well...
We need to find ways to celebrate. You see, we can discover festivals of worship. I mean, think of the Old Testament Festival of First Fruits, which was a Thanksgiving festival, a Passover festival, in celebration of the passing over of the death angel, Yom Kippur, which was a festival of confession, the Festival of Lights, or as we today call it, Hanukkah.
which was a festival of celebration. You see, just discovering ways for us to connect with our history. Why not a great festival in honor of mission history and the great, those who have worked so hard.
I mean, how about a festival in honor of William Carey or some other kind of great person like that. Or festivals of our culture itself. I mean, I'm thinking, why does Halloween have to be a celebration of the powers of darkness? Why can't it be a great celebration, captured by Christians, for a celebration of the great saints of the church and their lives? How about Thanksgiving?
How about Christmas? How about Easter? I mean, May Day. Forget the silly...
pageants, I mean just celebrate, enjoy. You don't need the style shows, you don't need, I mean, our son, our youngest son Nathan, one time when he was first learning to play the piano, he gave every one of us for Christmas a little note saying that he would play this, a certain piece on the piano. And he put these notes in different sized boxes and had loads of fun making us try to guess. What was in these big boxes and it would be that he would play a little tune on the piano and he'd jump up on the piano bench and play.
Why not, you see? All kinds of ways of just simple rejoicing and festivals. Or our own occasions for celebration. I don't know, Glandian, have you experienced any of that?
Every time my eight grandchildren come over, I celebrate. Eight? Eight grandchildren.
I mean, it's an extension of our family, our community, our history. And I guess for me, one of the most wonderful expressions of celebration is when my wife makes an apple pie. That is a wonderful way to celebrate her grace to us.
Yeah. And she does that with the kids, and it's just a wonderful memory that we hold very dear, and we honor God with it. Yeah. You were sharing, I forget what it was, something else about celebration.
Oh, well I was saying that in celebration we also see the other disciplines come in. Oh, that's right. For instance, in my family I can get very set ideas for how Thanksgiving dinner is going to be and how people are going to dress and all of that. And we have to let go. and submit to each other in those things.
And that's part of that learning how to celebrate. We live in community. We do.
I think the idea of confession and celebration really tied well today in terms of understanding forgiveness of sin and celebrating God's grace in our life. One of the great areas of celebration is the rites of passage that we have. Birthdays.
Do you realize how precious a human being is? And to just celebrate. this wonderful occasion of their birth or anniversaries.
And by the way, folks, I happen to know that we have a very special anniversary here. Our producer, Gary Moon, and Regina, this is their 28th anniversary. You shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace.
The mountains and the hills will break forth before you. There'll be shouts of joy. And all the trees of the field will clap, will clap their hands.
And all the trees of the field will clap their hands. The trees of the field will clap their hands. The trees of the field will clap their hands. While you go out with joy.
You shall go out with joy and lead a thought with peace. The mountains and the hills will break forth before you. There'll be shouts of joy.
And all the trees of the field will clap, will clap their hands. Oh. All the trees of the field will clap their hands.
The trees of the field will clap their hands. The trees of the field will clap their hands. Well, you go out with joy. You go out with joy and lead it forth with peace.
The mountains and the hills will bring glory for you. There will be shouts of joy. All the trees of the field will clap, will clap their hands. And all the trees of the field will clap their hands. The trees on the field will clap their hands Will you go out there and join?
You have all been so kind and so gracious and so attentive. Let's conclude with a very simple benediction. May you now receive all of the joy of the Lord that you can stand.
Amen. You are at liberty. Fear taker, soul soother, storm smoother, light shiner, lost finder, cloud lifter, deliverer, heart toucher, truth lover.
There could be a fear taker, peacemaker, mind clearer, sigh hearer, hand holder, consoler, wound binder. Tear-dryer, strength-giver, provider, heart-healer, kind father, who other could be my Savior, peacemaker to me? Let your peace take hold in me. Let your kindness fill my thoughts.
Let your strength secure my soul. Let your peace take hold in me. Let your wisdom guide my will.
Your compassion fill this place. Let my anxious thoughts be still. Let your peace rule in my heart. I need you.
In my life, Lord, I trust you, believe you, I need you. In my life, Lord. Heart healer, kind father, who other could be my savior, peacemaker.
To me, celebration is... Giving exuberant thanks to God for what he's done for you and for your family. It's different from worship.
Worship is focused just on God and his greatness, and that's wonderful. But it really is only complete when you give thanks to God. and it comes down to me, and I find myself skipping and jumping and saying, God has really done well by me.
He's really done well by me. And often you have that experience in hard times. That's when we need the discipline of celebration most is when we're in hard times. Yeah, I love that phrase of Augustine that the Christian should be an alleluia from head to foot.
Absolutely right. And you see that in the saints as you go down through the ages. They are people of celebration.
I didn't actually know about celebration until I wound up staying at a Franciscan monastery in Louvain. And I discovered that these Christians... had feast days on which they celebrated. Right. And they didn't do anything shameful.
They just enjoyed themselves, and they talked, and they had some drinks and food and things of that sort. And it was a wonderful thing to see that. And then I actually could read the Bible and see what was in there about celebration. There's a lot in there about that.
I love the statement about the lame man in Acts where he went walking and leaping and praising God. Yes. Now that would do a lot for us.
I've taken to recommending to Christians that they try skipping. And actually skipping is a very celebratory kind of thing. It gives a whole different attitude towards life. and these things that we do with our bodies.
Wouldn't it be good, 100 people or so skipping into church? I think it might start a revival, to tell you the truth. They skip into church and pour their hearts towards God in worship and share with one another and serve one another. That's really what comes out of the disciplines.
It's a life that comes out of the disciplines. It isn't a bunch of practices that just are valuable in their own right. themselves, they lead into life in a way that is glorious, and that's what we want.