MY BOOK OF WISDOM (PART 1)
(The Seventh Sermon: In Preparation for the Journey Forward)
PROLOGUE
In the summer of 2017 and in the midst of the church’s reflection over its potential splitting, I was given the duty as Supply Pastor and Lay Servant/Speaker at a local church in the Northeast Alabama District of the United Methodist Church where I wrote and preached seven sermons in seven weeks to prepare the church for their journey ahead once the splitting was formally announced.
The first six sermons led up to the most important seventh sermon to help the people weather the storm yet to come. Each sermon was given to me and manifested through meditation with my spirit. The seventh sermon was also my own finale, as I came to realize in the foreshadowing within the sermon, and the request for my permanent departure by the people in the church afterwards.
I wrote Sermon 7 to the local church I was pastoring in reaction to the leaders of the church incessantly complaining about how the United Methodist Church was asking too much money of them and that they view themselves as a small and independent church with thoughts of becoming an actual independent church of their own. But they wouldn’t do anything about it. Just complain more and more. In addition, I did not want the people to get all caught up in picking sides with the UMC about to schism. My thinking was that if they see themselves truly independent, then allow me to help them take that true leap of faith or at least progress towards it. Two of the leaders in the local church, who were the most childish, were looking for a way to lead the church as higher officers but I found were not mature enough for such roles. One left the church by me calling the person on the immaturity as having not been responsible enough in a lesser role with actual proof. I offered to help the person prepare for a higher position to help prepare for the desired position, but the person immediately left. The other leader, who led the children, allowed the children in the pews to talk and act out during the sermons; this person being prime example.
So, I wrote this Sermon 7 as a call to action using harsher language than normal for the two immature leaders. Not fire-and-brimstone, which has nothing to do with love, but much highly assertiveness–a tough love if you will–to drive home the message of taking that leap of faith into greater independence. This leap of faith is what I call leaving the Land of Childhood and into the Land of Adolescence.
SERMON 7
(Acts Speak Louder than Words)
Brothers and Sisters,
I have nothing to lose. And very soon I’ll be leaving you.
But before then, I encourage you to act and move forward in your journey. Look ahead and do not feel sorry for yourselves! Don’t say “Woe is me. Woe is us. The end is near. Why bother?”
Yes, if you look outside your window with your human eyes, it may appear so. But don’t you understand that you are not to live any longer as children in fear of what is happening around you? Though the wind blows and makes the seas rage on the surface making it hard to breathe and to keep your head above water, below is calmness for you to live in if you are brave enough to trust the Spirit and take His breath to stay alive. This I know from experience from one who dives.
And why not let loose by letting go of what ties you to childish ways. Sell your fields and follow your Spirit, or at least sell all but one of your fields and raise your own church on that field close to the next stage of Adolescence. In this way, you can leave in a moment’s notice when ready.
Let go of that world and those who are apathetic and feeling sorry for their own selves that don’t have the courage to move out but rather want you to stay and take care of them—to drain all your energy so that you say “Please no more. I’ll stay. No more conflict, no more fighting. Let us all just live in peace.”
Are you talking about outer peace or inner peace? Outer peace is easy. It only takes a smile and a few seconds of hello and everyone agreeing with everyone else for an hour or so each week.
But if you don’t do something that follows the heart of Jesus Christ who is prompting you to find more love and intimacy, you will never have the Peace you truly seek. It is not as hard as you think if you know that whatever you do, you will be given grace by He who is in you—that you are no longer a sinner, but just a human being.
You still don’t understand that you will not make it to Peace if you don’t act. You say you know you need to do something and so you pray and pray and sometimes you plan a little, but for what? What good is it to plan and never act on that plan? Yes, grieve, but move forward as you grieve. I am not asking you to dive into the deep end, but walk into it so that later you may swim in greater calmness like in Ezekiel 47:3-6. But do not wade or wait too long.
I sincerely believe that some of you don’t even realize that you have the most powerful being living inside you right now.
Jesus said in Mark 11:24, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
You have prayed and asked for Jesus to come. You ask, “Where is He? How can Jesus have come when what we have known for so long is being destroyed?”
Well, he has come, but you still won’t believe it. Two thousand years ago he died and was resurrected and you still will not accept the Spirit totally, or even His grace fully.
He is in you asking you to move forward, but you don’t believe it. If you believed it, you would see Him in you and sit down or walk with Him and talk with Him just as you talk with your family at supper, now and in the new world up ahead—where there is Freedom and Peace. If you can see it and believe it, then it is already really there waiting for you. You just have to move towards it.
But you are so caught up in the world around you and yourselves, that you will not even make an attempt to move so that He may come to work through you for the betterment of yourselves.
Now, again, I say this because I have nothing to lose, but also because I love you. My soul is intact. My mind and my heart are all aligned with God, and I fear not death going forward. I am not ashamed of myself, nor do I fear that someone will say, “That man is crazy. He says he talks to the Spirit.” Soon I will be somewhere else, and not with you. I may be preaching in the streets or helping out in another church or teaching at someone’s home. I do not know. When God makes it clear to me to go here and go there in the place where I am going, I will. So, one day you may see me, and the next day not. But if you see me and hear me one day, let me go because it is He you should be getting with and not me.
Allow me to live in Peace in my own Heaven-on-Earth.
But what is worse? The aches and pains you feel in your own body, or the knowing that you had the opportunity to live for God. I mean, who wouldn’t want to hear the voice of God say to them, “You have done so well. I am most proud of you. Come my child, and I will take you to where you belong.” I had already heard that once many years ago, and that is how I know He will say it to you too.
NOW, IS HEARING GOD SAY HE IS PROUD OF YOU WORTH IT?
When the Spirit said to me, “My child, let the dead bury the dead. You are mine and I will raise you as my own. Come and I will show you”, I didn’t have to go, but I felt in my heart nothing inside me that mattered, though my mind did know some scripture. Where else was I going to go? At least this voice from somewhere in the unknown gave me hope in my wallow and shame and my feeling of being unworthy. And so on that day, I obeyed and entered into the 2nd Heaven, and I continue to obey even to this day in the 3rd.
See the problem is that you may not know that you ARE worth it. If you knew you were worth it, you’d accept what the Spirit has been wanting to give to you. But how can he give to you something when you won’t even turn around and face Him and then hold up your hand and allow Him to take it in order to put something in it for you to hold on forever?
People in the 1st heaven are children. You must realize that they want what they want, and then when it is handed to them but in a form that they were not expecting, they reject it.
They trust that there is really candy on the inside just because it says “candy” on the outside. And so they untie the box right away and eat what is inside and enjoy it and then rest with it in no time.
Well folks, the Spirit feels a lot better than candy and it lasts forever, not just for a few minutes.
So you say, “Well, pastor, if you are saying that the Spirit is better than candy, then what box must I untie to get to the Spirit?”
Everyone, right now. Look at someone else. And when you go home today, look at yourself in the mirror. Now what do you think you need to untie? What you see IS the box that encases the Spirit in you. Can’t you see this? If not, do whatever you need to untie yourselves, and move out with Him.
Let’s Pray
Father, show me how to reach you. Give me the strength to untie myself from the clutches of that which is holding me back so that I may move out with you. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Benediction to My Brothers and Sisters
The greatest thing, is for me to have seen,
True love for my bride, before I died.
A person only sees what she wants to see, and no more.
Saddened and quickened to my core,
If she could not match an ethereal heaven with a grounded earth.
And be too preoccupied with the search,
Of what love should be, could be,
In order to see, to feel, to be.
To only analyze love; its knowledge from above.
Without having the cour’ge, to act on its urges,
To acquire, the selfish desire,
To just be her own person, her own lover,
Her heart ablaze, on fire. How could I have blamed, but the sinners and seekers, and devilish creatures, with their lies,
Pulling their wools—their deceiving rules—over my bride’s, innocent eyes. All one can do, is what one has done, and is all anyone can do, until they’ve won.
From the mouth of God, “My son, my daughter, now it is time, that you rest.
You have done your utmost best. I know you wish you could’ve done more,
But acquiesce, My son, daughter
Of whom I so, adore,
There is no more.
Welcome.”
– God
Peace be with you always. As you go forth, let each one of us find the time to be with God so that you may know Him better and be comforted in His Love and be guided to the Garden in His Great City where you may experience love, happiness, and peace everlasting.
Amen.
EPILOGUE
And it was then I moved on. It was an awakening, a spirited move to give to them what they would see in the future and to move on and mature from the Church’s childish ways. I felt that they were a church much further along than most in their spiritual maturity. But too difficult to hear, the staff sent my sermon to the Superintendent of the regional churches and asked him to ask me to leave permanently. This was of no surprise to me, and so I did voluntarily. I still find them most blessed.