Wednesday, September 16, 2009

We Will Dance

This past weekend we had the privilege of taking a trip to Bloomington where we got to enjoy an IU football win on a beautiful sunny day, eat some of our favorite food, and see some of our favorite people. On Sunday, we visited our former church, where, I swear, they knew I was coming back and decided to play all of my favorite songs during worship.

As an added bonus, Pastor Bob preached a killer sermon (as usual) on Philippians 2:12-21 about Paul's joyful and eternal perspective in the midst of and even because of his imprisonment for the gospel. Here this guy was in prison, chained to a guard, sitting in his own filth...and rejoicing, simply because the good news about Christ was spreading and God was being glorified through his suffering. Sounds pretty crazy and super-human, huh? Pastor Bob encouraged us by pointing out that while Paul was exemplifying the perspective we ought to have, he was just as human as we are and didn't feel this way all the time. He surely had his moments of fear, doubt, and weakness (see the "thorn in the flesh" passage in 2 Corinthians 12), but by the grace of God, he was able to see things with an eternal perspective and therefore, was actually joyful that he was suffering at times and had sufficient courage because he had hope that God would be glorified through it all. That's all that mattered to him.

In response to the sermon, we sang with joy, "We Will Dance," an ECC classic that is usually sung after communion. They get all rhythmic and clap on the 2nd and 3rd beats, skipping the first...which is pretty progressive and difficult for a bunch of white people! I couldn't find a version to share with you that was up-tempo the way the ECC band plays it, but Clay Crosse's rendition is close. Enjoy:

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