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Children’s Time:

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Scripture Readings:

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Adult Message Highlights: ‘Listen to Him…’

Presented by Lowell Sheppard

In the gospel reading, Peter, James, and John witnessed the physical revelation of Jesus as the Son of God. This experience was completely overwhelming for the disciples, but God wanted them to focus on the message He had for them. An intimate time and place had been especially chosen for the transfiguration and the disciples had been trusted with knowing who Jesus was before it was to be revealed the rest of the world.

Let’s remember the circumstances surrounding the transfiguration: (1) Jesus and his 3 best friends went away in solitude. The transfiguration was not a public stunt.  (2) They were on a mountain top, away from the valley where Jesus’ ministry was.  Jesus’ had spent His life ‘down in the valley’ engaging with people and reserved the ‘mountain top’ for intimate moments. (3) Jesus and the disciples were praying. Pray is a vital tool for communicating with God, blocking out other distractions in order to speak and listen to Him. Pray can be more than a 10 minute session, and can happen at any time, in unexpected ways.

During the transfiguration Peter, James, and John watched as Jesus appeared in His true likeness and were astounded. For the disciples, being in the complete presence of God was awesome and terrifying at the same time. God understands that we cannot handle being His true presence, but still calls us to Him in a relationship through Jesus.  Jesus bridges the gap as the ultimate manifestation of God to whom we can relate.

God had the disciples completely focused and instructed them to listen to Jesus. The Son, a manifestation of Father, has the all the answers to connecting to the Father. The disciples had watched this amazing event and heard God, but had they really been listening?

Today in our technological, cross-cultural society, there is the increasing concern of less listening. We are consistently being bombarded with so many things that we hear which results in misunderstanding each other and not letting the true message get through. God tells us to ‘listen’ by being mindful through scripture, each other, nature, etc…. Remember that going up to the mountain had removed all the daily distractions that would have not allowed the disciples to focus on God’s voice. There was no doubt who the disciples saw and what they heard. “I think that when God speaks, He is clear and we know…” (L. Sheppard)

In a modern illustration, our pastoral leader told the congregation of a personal experience for the process of listening. When he had asked a friend for advice on starting long lasting projects to help people, the friend likened the process to ‘smoking tobacco’. It takes awhile; gather the tobacco and pipe, prepare the tobacco, light it, puff it slowly, and concentrate on the experience. When smoking tobacco, one cannot talk – just listen.  There are no fireworks, but one action that is fully appreciated.

This week’s challenge: Listen to God!!!