THE RETURN: BE AT PEACE - PART 1 - 03/13/2022

Grace Place Atlanta COGBF 4700 Mitchell Street Forest Park, GA 30297 Website: atlantacogbf.org Email: info@atlantacogbf.org Phone: (404) 241-6781 Wayne D. Mack, Pastor / Pastor Wayne D. Mack Sermon Notes March 13, 2022 The Return: BE AT PEACE I speak from a vision … The Return: BE AT PEACE GM Grace Place! We are here and Open this Sunday! I emphasize “THIS Sunday” because we take nothing for granted, nor do we take any credit for being back. To God be all the glory. We should pause for a moment of High Praise to God. “This (First) Sunday” BACK is the start of a new birth for how we see church, appreciate church, and value all that God originally intended for us to experience “about church” when Jesus declared: “Upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against”. I had originally anticipated that our first Sunday back would be a grand celebration after being apart and closed after a serious two-year pandemic church closure and a 24-month no-fellowship period. 1 [But today’s message is one of a soberer tone. One that I’m convinced is from God. After today’s message, we will be in better position to celebrate more freely and purposefully. Meanwhile, as we celebrate in part, I’m convinced that before we lean to our own understanding -- we need to be clear on what we’re celebrating from God’s perspective. Don’t get me wrong, getting back to church should be a happy moment, but whatever is happy about the ability to regather should be defined by God. [Meanwhile, I want you to think on this sober truth: We neither mourn the closing of church, nor do we celebrate its reopening. That is to miss the point of the Holy Spirit’s message to the saints over the past two years. The pandemic was designed for us to personally turn our undivided attention to God. Did you? On the other hand, I believe it’s safe to say that being away from church and separated from each other hasn’t been all bad, in and of itself. In one sense, it has been a blessing in disguise, but that too has to be left up to God to define as well. Today, as we return, regather, and reenter for a time perceived as a • “back to normalcy”, or • “our” regular practice of worship, or • a return to picking up where we left off before the church closed – I want to caution the GP Family and the entire Christian Body – to take a much sober approach to returning to God’s house. 2 [To simply return to church after a two-year unprecedented time of seeming ungodly disconnect, personal reflection, and spiritual introspection -- and to not have met the Lord on a new plane is next to unbelievable. I believe God has a message for all Believers to slow your role in your return. I believe that message, in part, is also to: Remember that the Church is My Church, NOT yours. And in the words of Isaiah 55: My ways are not your ways, neither my thoughts your thoughts. So, because of that, temper your mindset in how you approach it and govern your attitude and expectation accordingly. Today’s message, entitled BE At Peace . . . is one that stems from a vision that the Lord gave me last Monday. “Be At Peace” is a word of comfort God spoke to me regarding preaching this message and staying on course with its directives in the days ahead. Last Monday, after the men’s 5:30 morning prayer, I remained in prayer posture. That’s when I fell into a trance and the Lord met me at GP to show Me . . . and to reveal a new level of expectation He has for the GP family – and for that matter all of His churches that experienced the impacts of the pandemic. In short, He revealed that only our utmost for His highest would be acceptable in His church, this church after experiencing a period of unplug, unwind, and unlearn to relearn. What that means is that God’s house, made up of God’s people, should be a house where members only strive to maintain harmony and unity within the fellowship. 3 Deliberate contentions, agitations, discord-sowing, self-centered criticism, fault-finding without cause or solution -- all of which are driven by personal unfounded and unjustified disgruntle must not be tolerated among our ranks as they are not at all representative of God’s house. Never have been, never will be. [The church must operate as the church God designed it to be. A place where the Spirit of God abides, and the people strive to please Him by loving Him with their heart, soul, and mind . . . one another as themselves. ] Against that backdrop, we find today’s message text; please turn to the Book ok Deuteronomy, Chapter 29. In this chapter we see Moses recalling to the children of Israel all that the Lord performed for them through many signs and wonders over a period of 40 years – from deliverance from slavery in Egypt to the threshold of the Promised Land. Yet, in spite of all they had experienced, Israel was spiritually blind, spiritually oblivious to the significance of what the Lord had done for them. All they were concerned about was getting into the Promised Land . . . by any means necessary. Listen to the account, because it serves as a warning to us today! Listen to Deuteronomy 29:2-9 . . . 29:2 Now Moses called all Israel and said to them: “You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to 4 Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land— 3 the great trials which your eyes have seen, the signs, and those great wonders. 4 Yet the Lord has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day. 5 And I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn out on your feet. 6 You have not eaten bread, nor have you drunk wine or similar drink, that you may know that I am the Lord your God. 7 And when you came to this place, Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out against us to battle, and we conquered them. 8 We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, to the Gadites, and to half the tribe of Manasseh. 9 Therefore keep the words of this covenant, and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do. The account serves as a warning to us today in that it calls on us to pay attention to all the blessings and lessons God has provided to each of us, [one by one, name by name, individual by individual, family by family] over the past 24 months. This passage reminds us to be careful not to let our selfish, misdirected eagerness to get “The Church Opened Back Up” oblivious and blinded to all the deeper things God was exposing us to throughout the two-year pandemic. We would be wrong to conclude that the end all, be all of the COVID-19 crisis be the closing and opening back of churches. If that is the case, we have missed God. Consider these two realities: • We neither mourn the closing of church, nor do we celebrate its reopening. What every believer should be celebrating is that 5 God is faithful and that He has moved in your life over the past 2 years. • 6.4 million have died from COVID-19 or a variant of it worldwide; However, The Lancet Medical Journal places the death toll at 18 million Deaths; 966k in the US; and of late, a new variant = BA2 more potent than Omicron has emerged. God’s message to the church is deeper than celebrating opening church doors; His message is about opening church people’s hearts to a deeper message of who He is and who He would like to see us become in Jesus’ name. The Children of Israel were so eager to see the Promised Land open up until they closed their hearts to all that God had exposed them to in order to make them His own. Moses said to them: 29:2 “You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land— 3 the great trials which your eyes have seen, the signs, and those great wonders. 4 Yet the Lord has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day. [ 4 But to this day the LORD has not given you minds that understand, nor eyes that see, nor ears that hear! ] 6 In other words, in spite of all they had experienced (vv. 2,3), Israel was spiritually blind to the significance of what the Lord had done for them, lacking spiritual understanding, even as Moses was speaking. The spiritual blindness of Israel continues to the present day (Rom 11:8), and it will not be reversed until Israel’s future day of salvation (Rom. 11:2527). The Lord had not given them an understanding heart, simply because they didn’t want it and had not penitently sought it. This attitude is the precise reason God gave King Solomon 2 Chron. 7:14 – because He is still waiting for Israel to turn to Him. So it is said: 14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Israel has yet to humble themselves, pray, pursue the Lord’s face, turn from their idol worship, thus they have off and on experienced the Lord’s anger and wrath. 5 And I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn out on your feet. 6 You have not eaten bread, nor have you drunk wine or similar drink, that you may know that I am the Lord your God I believe the last 24 months was [and remains] a wakeup call to the church. And because many churches weren’t doing God’s bidding from 7 a purely biblical basis, God allowed the church, that is, the called-out ones – to go through the pandemic to get our attention. Today, the word to GP is: Be At Peace. The meaning and significance of this encouragement is that going forward “Our Peace” will be found in serving God through the peace Jesus spoke about in John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. This is the peace we must have in God’s church to experience sweet communion with the Holy Spirit and with one another. This is the peace we must have in order to experience loving fellowship, and unity in the work of ministry. It is the Jesus brand of peace that we must allow to reign in our church so that we achieve what . . . • Bearing one another in love is all about • What being forgiving of one another does to keep us free • What growing from milk to meat to maturity will do to advance GP in the community What does this peace look like in real time? Acts 9:31 shows us a picture: 31 Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied. 8 We need the peace of God to become a complete church, and a prosperous church. I personally heard the Lord tell me BE AT PEACE. In short, He was telling me not to entertain discord, riff raft, murmuring, complaining, constant nonsence, disharmony, uncommitted hearts, and more – but rather Be At Peace and not lose any sleep over non-edifying demands, requests, or expectations. He said no church operating in Jesus’ name is called to waste time entertaining anything that doesn’t esteem Christ. Titus 1: 10-16 outlines the Pastor and Elder’s task: The Elders’ Task 10 For there are many insubordinates, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, 11 whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain. One of them, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” 13 This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, 14 not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth. 12 15 To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled. 16 They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work . 9