Pastoral Letter 105
Dear Members of St. Andrew’s Uniting Church, Friends and Adherents,
Greetings to you all in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Thanks to God for the good news, about the government’s further easing of the COVID restrictions. Now we are allowed to sing, and masks are not mandatory anymore for places of worship, but if you feel safer, please keep wearing them. On Sunday after worship, we will have our Interim AGM meeting and our weekly actives will recommence next week, beginning with the Movie Night on Tuesday and TIME4U on Wednesday. We hope and pray that we will keep on worshiping together for the rest of the year.
As I have indicated earlier, you will still receive my brief Pastoral Letter with the Order of Service, Message and hymns every week. Those who will not be able to join us on Sundays, they can worship with us at home.
Be safe and well, continue to pray, remembering those who need care, support and love and let us know if any member of the congregation that you know of needs our help and prayers.
Bruce West has been hospitalised due to a fall to receive treatment. He is fine, but he will be needing care and physiotherapy for some time.
Here are some more prayer points for this week:
- Pray for the poor, the sick, the vulnerable, the struggling and the stressed.
- Pray for all those who are suffering under hardship and poverty.
- Pray for world peace and ask for God’s blessings.
- Pray for the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and those who are suffering, hoping that the situation will be deescalated soon.
- Pray and give thanks with all you have and remember that everything is given by God with His grace.
Please let me know if you or anyone else has prayer points.
Best Regards,
Krikor
MESSAGE
Bright and Radiant Faces
The basic purpose of the church is: To be a positive, transforming agent in the lives of people.
In other words: “To grow closer to Jesus Christ, and to each other.”
It is understood that we cannot get closer to Jesus unless we are in motion, unless we are willing to move. We cannot get to where we are going by staying where we are.
We say that the church is in the business of transforming because that is what God does. God is not out there to only make you better and to improve you. He is out there to completely transform you.
In 1999 a documentary called ‘Transformations‘ was produced in the US and, within a matter of months, it was sweeping the world. This video is a graphic presentation of four cities across the world in which the presence of God has transformed not only the churches, but also entire communities. The message that the video seeks to put out is, “Learn how the power of prayer can deliver similar results in your own neighbourhood“.
About 25 years have passed and I doubt if that or a similar video will impact that much on people, communities and churches at the present. A lot has changed since then, even in churches, not knowing where they are heading. It is very clear that we need some kind of transformation to get us back on the right track to do our mission and ministry.
It is time to think of the real transformation we need, a new incentive to do God’s work for His glory.
God transforms our personalities and even our bodies as Paul says in 1 Cor. 15:51: “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed”. In every aspect of our existence, God is at work transforming us as individuals, and as a people, as a church. – That is the GOOD NEWS.
God is in the process of transforming us.
2 Corinthians 3: 13-18 Paul says:
We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away.
But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read.
It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Paul compares the truth of the old and the new glory, one that fades, is temporary and leads to death and one that shines bright, is permanent never to be extinguished and leads to life. We who are unveiled can see the glory of the Lord and be transformed into His likeness with ever increasing glory. That is just amazing! This is not a physical transformation and we will not look like the Lord. This is a Spiritual, character forming transformation.
But how does this profound character transformation take place?
When anyone turns to the Lord, confesses a belief in Jesus the veil is taken away. When we have the right relationship with God, we have the transformation process. If we do not surrender our all, if we do not have a passion to seek God, the wholeness of Christ in our lives could be missed; the offer of a relationship with God could be lost.
God wants to purify all of our good from all that is not. He wants to make us Holy by the blood of His son Jesus. He does this by a process of transformation, taking us from glory to glory.
We are transformed by the renewing of our mind. We are transformed into His likeness by reflecting the Lord’s glory. The glory that is being reflected is not some brilliant radiance from a Moses-like visitation, but it is the true glory of His authority and directorship in our life. God will work to transform us, even in areas of which we are unaware, as we spend time in searching, fasting, and prayer. That is why we have to navigate into an area of searching, study, fasting, and prayer. I believe it is essential for us to go through this time if we are going to accomplish our purpose as a people and as a church.
As we move into the Lent season, I urge you to give some time for soul searching, studying the Word, and praying more.
One of the most amazing miracles of nature is the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. When you look at the before and after of the same creature; it is like night and day. It changes from being slow and fat and crawling on the ground, to colourful and thin and flying through the air. Yet the actual metamorphosis is a rather mediocre procedure from our point of view. All we actually can see is the cocoon on the outside, while all of the change is happening inside.
When Jesus Christ went up on the Mount of Transfiguration – the change was much different. In a matter of moments, He went from looking normal into a completely bright, radiant and awesome looking God. His clothes suddenly started shining like lightning and became as white as snow. It was as if He took off His outer clothing to reveal a completely different side of Himself and the disciples could clearly see who Jesus was. Jesus was God.
Christians also are under the process of a change – a transformation. It’s a part of our nature. Just like a human can’t help but grow old, the Christian also can’t help but change. He has to. But it’s not something that we try to stop or hide – something that makes us ugly and decaying. No, this change is a good thing – it makes us beautiful.
When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands after speaking with God his face was radiant. In other words, he was transformed. Standing in the presence of God transformed him totally. He was somehow a new creation and God’s glory was reflecting through him. He spoke with God face-to-face and he was completely transformed. The weak Moses we know, who was afraid to speak feeling incompetent and clumsy, was completely transformed into a totally new being with a glowing face.
Similarly, Jesus’s face changed significantly that day on the mountain. This transformation process took place on the mountain; a sacred place, where it is easier to feel God’s presence.
Jesus, the perfect man was transfigured to reflect God’s perfect and bright image with a bright and radiant Face. It was a glorious splendour at the mountain to the point where Peter suggested building three shelters and staying there evermore with Jesus the Lord.
But ironically Jesus wanted them to go back to the world and to spread the good news.
For the disciples the mountain experience resulted in a renewing and total transformation to urge them to act and put more effort in the ministry they were called to do.
The church, as the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, should have this transformation first to reflect God’s perfect image and actively endeavour to act as the agents of God and reflect God’s glory to the people around.
Today the need of the church, which is supposed to be the body of Christ, desperately needs a ‘mountain top’ experience to change, to transform and to act. It’s not just changing the look or the figure, but a total transformation from within, that will help and give the urge to play the role given by God as His agents in this world.
Let the church feel that transformation from within and do what it is supposed to do for the glory of God.
Amen!