I am at my kitchen table this morning and I have just begun
a sermon that I will deliver this Sunday morning. Why is this a gift? It is the
faithfulness of God and the sure and solid confirmation that He has been with
me through all the darkness and pain. It has been some years since I really
have delivered anything to a church. Yet this Sunday at 10:30am I will deliver
a message that is material proof that God is true to His. I am preaching in a
church that was once my church. About five years ago, it all ended in a tragic
nightmare that included comments regarding my personal integrity and honesty
and ability to lead a congregation. It was said at that time that the building
was of no use any longer but that it was ‘tainted’ and so the Spirit of God
would never move within its walls again. That building sat vacant for almost
two years. Yet in that time, there was support for the long famine that was to
come. I remember getting calls about the building to use it as a funeral home
and while it would have been convenient, the words that rang in that building
in those nightmarish moments seemed to be coming into reality and I was
helpless to stop it. Yet God told me by principle to not let the building be
used for such purposes but within those walls life once again would be flooding
that place. Months passed and yet there was still no clear direction. It seems
that all I had built was on sand and not the rock and this was my fault. In the
eyes of my family, I had forsaken the Way and deserved to be cast aside as a
reprobate and even a heretic; such is the fate for those who see differently
than what had been taught and practiced by rote. There was no doubt that I was
now at the lowest spot in my life. Reputation maligned and given no confidence
by anyone and it seemed all my wife and I could do was to survive each day. But
in those times, I was forced to do one of two things: forsake the God who
called me or begin to explore again who this God was. I embarked on studies
that reviewed what I had been taught . I have to say that when the effort was
made, the flaws were ever apparent and it was by the word itself I was able to assess
all I had learned. I was able by that same word to construct a life based not on myopic teaching
but based upon the Bible itself and supplemented by teachings from perhaps the
greatest minds Christendom has produced. Friend, I have found truth welcomes
scrutiny and it is quite ironic that in dysfunctional groups dialogue and
debate is non-existent or quashed. In
the finishing of that process, I received a phone call. Someone was interested
in the church and I had mixed feelings on it because of what it meant. It meant
a closing of a chapter and the beginning of another. Whatever base I had held
to was at risk of being swept away and my heart broke. I remember walking down
to the church from my home on an early spring morning to meet the potential
buyers. I walked in and they were there. We had some conversations and I began
to realize that they could not afford such a building. So I told them I would
pray about them using the building. Pastor Jeff was a man who was just
beginning a ministry as a pastor. He had been in the ministry for years and was
very involved in a prison outreach and Teen Challenge. He had been through some
rough waters himself but there was a spark I saw that the Lord let me see and
it had been a long time since I had seen the fire of God in someone’s eye. To
make a long story short, I believed it was the mind of the Lord to let their
fledgling church use the facility. In that first service, Vicki and I came late
and stayed in the back because it was no longer our place but we watched as God
breathed His life into a corpse of a building. Friends, there were to be no
funerals here – only a celebration of life. It has been almost three years
since that first service. I continued to go there and to add what I could. With
the graciousness of Pastor Jeff I was able to go to prison and Teen Challenge
and lead people into the Lord’s Kingdom along with Pastor Jeff. I have seen many come to Jesus in that
building that once sat empty and dead with the words of those who wrote Ichabod
on the door post bouncing off its walls and ceiling. Yet it was not to be. God
had other plans, good plans and plans for another life for my wife and I. The Association
was established while still small is growing and able to support ministries
bringing people into a better life. I am
truly a blessed man.
So I sit here writing a sermon to deliver in a church where
it was said God would never darken the door and where His spirit would never
move again. I will on that day look around and remember the words of a gifted
man the once spoke to me of ‘Ashes and Dust and Building Rubble’ you see what I
did not understand then I do now. From the ashes has risen something beautiful
and I am alive to see it and contribute to it. That sermon is a gift and I
cannot help to think it is God’s way of telling me that the best is yet to
come. If I could ever tell those who saw the death of this church that there is
life after the death that was spoken to this church and to me. There is life
and the heartbeat of that life grows stronger
because the words and promises of God cannot be thwarted or denied. What
was built lives on.
It is said that what God speaks and desires prevails in
spite of circumstances because He has spoken and desired it. It never happens as
we would have planned it or thought it would be but there it is: it would not
be God if we could have conceived it. It is not and will never be. It is a
gift.
You are truly a blessing.
ReplyDeleteYour writings are compelling, confirming, profound, powerful, and at times heart wrenching. Thank you for your courage.
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