Blessing In Disguise

Sunday’s message entitled "Blessing in Disguise" served as a great transition from our last sermon series. This message reinforced the importance of prayer in the life of the church from Christ’s own example. It also reminded us of our new identity and state of existence through the redemptive work of Christ. What was new for us were some practical implications for the importance of prayer related to effective ministry. We observed that Jesus not only regularly made time to pray, but in this case, He prayed for an entire night before selecting leaders for the soon to be newly formed church. From the mountaintop where He spent time praying to the Father, He led His disciples down to a level place where there was a crowd of people. Some of them were inflicted with disease and others were tormented by unclean spirits and Jesus healed them all. Afterwards He lifted up His eyes upon disciples who were poor, hungry, weeping, hated, excluded, and reviled. He then declared they were blessed. 
 
Our big takeaways from our passage are: 1) prayer is necessary for making leadership decisions for the church which had become a normative pattern by the time church leadership developed in Acts; 2) prayer is the source of power for ministry to oppressed people; 3) those whom God calls blessed is often counterintuitive and contradicts social norms shaped by the broader society. Those who have been transformed by the power of the gospel are blessed because of Jesus alone. This ultimate reality and absolute truth transcend circumstances, other’s perceptions and personal feelings. Let’s rejoice in God’s blessing in Jesus Christ and be a blessing to others.