A Good Sunday Evening

Last Sunday evening, Pastor Jason Webb from Grace Fellowship Church in Bremen, IN (the church that planted GBC) came and preached for us during our Lord's Supper service. What a good word from God he brought to us that night! It was so good that I want to tell you about it. I was foolish enough to neglect to record it, so you can't listen to it, but you can read my limited thoughts on it in this post. I also managed to dig it out of the archives from when he preached that message at GFC and you can listen that iteration here. (What follows is a mixture of Pastor Jason's message and my own thoughts triggered by what he preached.)

In a day when the Lord's Day is largely marginalized and unimportant (and that's among Christians!), it was refreshing to be reminded of what makes for a truly good Sunday evening. Jason opened up John 20:19-20 to show us what happened on the night of the Sunday when Jesus rose from the dead. "On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, 'Peace be with you.' When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord."

So  what makes for a good Sunday evening? John 20:19-20 describes a pretty remarkable one, and we heard 4 things that made it so for the disciples:

1. Who they met. Jesus was there! The disciples met their RISEN Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ there in that room. The presence of Jesus makes for a very good Sunday night.
2. What they heard. "Peace be with you." They heard that they, though they were sinners, though they had abandoned their Savior when they most needed to stand by him, though they were cowering in fear that night, still they could have peace. This is the good news of the gospel, that sinful man can be reconciled, at peace, with the very God against whom they have rebelled.
3. What they saw. They saw his hands and his side, signs of his dying love. They saw that his blood had been shed for their sins. With Jesus sin never has the last word; his love does.
4. How they felt. Joyful! The fearful, mourning disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.

That's a good Sunday night indeed, and as we gathered around the Lord's table to worship this message warmed my soul and encouraged me that I was in exactly the right place. Because Sunday night, Jesus met with us. We heard the good news that sinners like us at war with God can have peace with him because of Jesus. We saw signs of his dying love in the bread and the cup. And we were glad in contemplating these realities. 

It's interesting. When we treat the Lord's Day like it's our day so that we can do more of what we want because we think that will be good for us, we actually miss out on the real blessing of what the Lord's Day should be.