It is always pretty amazing when the communications/worship leader is the one who does the sermon. I often marvel at the way these people in particular can take what they are speaking on and carry the theme of that message all the way until the end leaving us with a complete package of what the message was.
This happened again this morning. Our worship leader did the sermon at our church. We have been going through Philippians and the message this morning was on chapter 4 verses 1-7. I have heard and read many different messages on this popular portion of scripture. I have even written on this portion of scripture. The Holy Spirit never ceases to amaze me at how He can teach us something new from an “old” or familiar portion of scripture, if we keep our minds and hearts open to Him. This morning was no exception. Tom, our speaker/teacher this morning drew something from this passage that I don’t think I’ve heard before. He focused on the relationship and responsibility of the church to help bring resolution to conflicts and unity back to the church by helping two women who were having a conflict in the church of Philippi. He also brought out the Webster’s definition of rejoice that also shed new light unto the passage for me. Rejoice according to Webster means to give joy. To attempt paraphrase a 30min sermon, Tom was telling us that in and through Jesus we can give joy to those in the church to bring unity, resolution of conflict and in his words, power. Our willingness to give joy through word and action is powerful. He weaved the illustration of this power in light. He had a light bulb and then at the end a woman danced in the darkened auditorium with illuminated balls on string. It was a very powerful illustration for me regarding the power of joy as we give it to others.
As Tom was speaking of the light and the power of the light, I couldn’t help but remember 1 John 1:7 “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another...” We can only give powerful and lasting joy away when we have gotten it from Jesus Himself, the Light of the world. There was one moment when Tom was standing near the light and from my perspective his face was obscured by the brightness of the light. Essentially, Tom disappeared and only the light was visible. Isn’t this what we want in the church? If we are close enough to the Light and interact with others (the church in this sermon) those we are interacting with won’t see us at all just the Light, Jesus.
Hmm….something to meditate on….
Another interesting thing about Tom’s sermon was his challenge to us to not give up on each other. We have the choice to just do nothing, nothing at all. When we choose to do nothing either the person we could have brought power, hope and joy to will die in some way or we will. So we either choose life or we choose death. This weekend my husband and I were on a retreat for our church and Tom and his wife were there as well. Tom may not have realized it but his comment to me about how he has read my blog when it’s posted on our church facebook page, brought life (power) to me. As you know, I have given into the relaxed schedule of the summer and have not posted a blog for some time. His simple comment encouraged me to make the time to sit down again and do what I know God has asked me to do. Thanks, Tom for bringing power into my life by giving away some the joy Jesus has given you!
Cavat: I just learned from Tom that Jeff Smith was the one who helped with the program. Way to go Jeff!
