Dear Family at Christ Community,

       On Sunday, we will engage with the Gatherer’s seventh admonition concerning joy from Ecclesiastes 11:7-10. He will call for the experienced as well as the young to rejoice in the formative opportunities entrusted to them as gifts from God. The true measure of the value of a given day, week, month, or year should be determined by how it helps to form us further into God’s image. The value of these gifts of time is not to be measured by what we earn or accomplish as these things are fleeting and will be forgotten. God cares more for the formation of our character in Christ than the development of our resumes in our own strength. This allows for any circumstance that we’re in or have gone through to have lasting meaning and ultimately bring us joy as it serves to form us further into the image of Christ.

       As part of our worship, we will celebrate communion together. Our invitation to the table isn’t based on anything that we’ve accomplished; it’s based on who and Whose we are in Christ! This reality serves both as the ultimate gift from God and reality that transforms all our days, weeks, months, and years. As John D. Currid writes in Ecclesiastes: A Quest for Meaning? :

The book of Ecclesiastes is about joy: it is not a book of despair or fatalism. Yet it is about the right type of joy. True joy only comes from having a relationship with Jesus Christ. True satisfaction, true joy, and true understanding only come from our surrender to our King, who sits enthroned over the universe.

       Please rejoice in your forgiveness in the past, present, and future as represented in the broken bread! Please rejoice in your resurrected newness of eternal life as signified in the lavish cup! This forgiveness and resurrected newness of eternal life make it possible for you to rejoice in the ongoing transformation further into the image of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit day by day. Most of all, please rejoice in the fact that the Lord will complete the work that He started in our lives!

In Christ,
Cameron