Fifty2Sundays-Listening to
God – 2nd Posting for February 21, 2016
I woke up Sunday not knowing where I was going to go to church
that morning. After praying about it - a church came to mind that I used to
drive past occasionally when I lived in a different part of the city. It is a
ginormous church-but since I didn't know its name I couldn't look up the times
of their services, so again I prayed if it were meant to be, the timing would
work out. As it turned out, I arrived just as their 11 o'clock worship was
about to start. Before finding my way to the auditorium, I stopped to use the
restroom and as I waited to wash my hands, the woman ahead of me at the sink
turned around looked at me and then blurted out my name! This caught me by
complete surprise and apologetically I had to admit that I didn’t recognize
her. The woman (Leah) reminded me of her name and the fact that we had worked
at the same place a decade before. While this left me feeling bad (since I like
to think I never forget a person), God used this encounter to confirm to me
that I was where I was supposed to be that morning plus it was nice to have
someone to sit with.
The service began with several songs sung by the large all
male-choir that were behind the stage and accompanied by a live orchestra in a
music pit. There was a reading of the scripture (Psalm 27), announcements of
up-coming events and opportunities to serve, and then in honor of Black History
month, there was a sharing of this church’s history. Afterwards there was a
brief presentation about an African American inventor, Lewis H. Latimer-the
original inventor of the electric light bulb and one of Thomas Edison’s
Pioneers. Celebrating Black History in church was something I have never
experienced in a church before, however, completely understandable given this
was a predominantly African-American congregation. The pastor was a very
dynamic preacher. The most noted aspect was how laced with scripture his speech
was. Throughout the sermon he emphasized the need to “study deeply” he word of God,
to ask questions and seek answers and get help if necessary. (As a side note I
observed many of those in attendance had bibles on their lap and were following
along).
The bible text for the sermon was taken from Revelation
2:18-29 and an accompanying text was I Kings 18. It
was the third lesson in a series of Sunday sermon’s concerning the seven
churches; the focus on this day was the church of Thyatira. This church, the
pastor pointed out, had “started out right” but had allowed the “teaching of
Jezebel” to creep in. The results were that God’s servants were ‘mislead into
committing sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols’ (verse
20) and thus corrupted the church. Jezebel represents the ‘sin of Baal’- which
is why I Kings 18 was the accompanying biblical text for the lesson. The pastor
encouraged everyone to do some reading about Baal worship and what it involved
to understand why this sin was so egregious to God. (See: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Baal & http://www.bible-history.com/resource/ff_baal.htm).
Listening - what I heard was a call for the ‘church’ to remain
true to God and unpolluted by the world and by sin. The only way this can occur
is if each person strives to keep their own life in tune with God’s principles
and this requires knowing them as revealed in his word. In turn the church, as
the body of believers can collectively seek to be the “radiant” church as
described in Ephesians 5:25-27: “…Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make
her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to
present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or
any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”
What will it take to be a "radiant church"? Consider John
15:1-8: “I am the true vine, and my
Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no
fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will
be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I
have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch
can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear
fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you
remain in me and me in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do
nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is
thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and
burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you
wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory,
that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”
