Just an ordinary member of congregation

Just an ordinary member of congregation

It is very rarely that I am just an Ordinary member of congregation.  Normally I am preaching or presiding or running Sunday school, or even just reading the bible or giving intercessions.  But today I was just me, in my chair, amongst the others and it was lovely.  I got to hear, absorb, pray deeply, settle into God's love and appreciate the days messages for me.

Of course once a preacher, always a preacher; it changes how you hear a sermon.  I am much more appreciative of the work that has gone into it and more aware of the messages that are coming across.  And so, since I am a written word learner, I took notes and here they are:

"We get a lamb; weak, little, dependent.  Not a cheetah or a giraffe or an elephant or anything great, but a lamb.  And a lamb who will take away the sins of the world, what?

Isaiah speaks about the lamb, the obedient lamb going to suffer in slaughter without complaint.  The lamb of Israel, the exodus.  So the listeners knew what the lamb meant.

We are in the likeness of Christ, we too are lambs.  We will have joys, we will suffer, we can bring healing in Christ's name because we are in Christ, for christ and like Christ.  

And we know this because we experience relationship with Christ, the love of Christ.  We experience Christ when we are sick and our friends visit us and care for us; we experience Christ when we share the gospel with others; we experience Christ when we encourage others to be better together.  

Obama in Tucson said that together in unity we are stronger than all the evil we face.  He provided spiritual leadership in that speech.

Come and see.  
Come and experience the lamb. 
Come and enter into a relationship with God.  

Perhaps we are held back by the fact that we want to be shown something, what is that?  All Jesus offers is himself, in relationship with us, cone experience that and your questions will fall away."

This of course won't mean much to you readers, it probably needs to have had the sermon to deliver it's messages, but it says much to me.  Today I heard how it is as a meal, flawed human that we encounter God, are called by God and are used by God in the world.  Today I was reassured that I am good enough.  And I also heard the value of showing rather than telling, and this feeds into my exploration of how the unchurched view "the church" - a process I will blog about in the future.