Recognizing The Hour of Our Visitation

I am working on a sermon for next week. Several things have come together that seem to be God’s direction for that message. I told you about a couple of them last week. I had been thinking about the message when I first heard Keith and Meagan Cook’s album, Narrow Road. Then I watched through the week as the video from the Sunday PM service kept getting more and more hits on YouTube. I watched it a few times, and during each viewing I felt the deep sense of anointing that it projected. Finally, I read 1 Corinthians, chapter twelve.

These events have made me think about how we do church work. I think we might have it backwards. The leaders of the church plan, organize, and assign responsibilities in order to focus the people towards a common mission. Our intentions are good, and we accomplish some notable things that way. However, 1 Corinthians seems to point in another direction.

In 1 Corinthians, St. Paul seems to view the work of the church as being accomplished through the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit pours out gifts upon the people and then calls them to specific works. For these works, His gifts are able to serve as ‘power tools’. If this is the case, then the work of church leaders should be that of discerning what God is ‘up to’ in the congregation, and acknowledging that work. We then should champion the people and their gifts. We should organize to accommodate their callings, and train and care for them as they do God’s work. This makes leadership a matter of running, in order to catch up to what God is doing!

What God seemed to be saying to me this week is that He has already poured out the gifts on the people. He has already called them to do specific missions, and He is waiting on us to acknowledge His work. We just need to organize ourselves to accommodate it.

This is why I have been watching the Sunday PM video – because God is in it. He is telling us what He wants us to do and how he wants us to do it. He wants us to worship in ways that connect people of our times to Him and to one another. He wants us to make time and space for Holy moments. He wants us to find ways to communicate these moments to the world. He wants us to cherish and help the ones He is using to do this work.

Jesus came to Jerusalem and was ready to fulfill all that the prophets had promised. Unfortunately, the people of Jerusalem did not recognize the hour of their visitation. So, the Lord wept and went away for a season. We have to pay attention when He is among us to do a special work.

Now is such a time.

Next Sunday, Keith and Megan will sing for us. We will also view this five-minute video from the Sunday PM service. I will talk about ways of paying attention to what God wants to do among us and about ways of spreading this word to others.

Please pray, and come expecting to receive some word about God’s gifts and callings in your own life.

Something is happening among us. Let’s not miss our hour of visitation!