What It Will Take

Fifty2Sundays-Listening to God – 2^nd 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.”