Fifth Sunday of Easter
April 20, 2008

Acts 7:55-60; Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; I Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14

Because I will be leaving for FLAME very early Sunday morning, I will not be preaching this Sunday. If I were, I know I would use the scripture from I Peter 2. I love how it describes what the church is. “…[Y]ou are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.” The passage in Acts tells of Steven’s stoning. Steven was a man of boldness and Steven was a man of God — a man who followed after Jesus. He followed after Jesus so much that he even used the same words that Jesus used on the cross. In one translation it calls the believers a peculiar people. Sometimes I get scared of that. I remember those junior high and high school years. I was a geek — and in a word I was peculiar. As much as we don’t like to admit it, our natural tendency is not to want to stand out in a crowd. But if we really want to follow Christ, that is what is going to require.

We were talking about this last night in our board meeting. One of the things that God has blessed us with is Mosaic Student Ministries. What Preston Wesleyan Church is doing is probably unique among the churches of Henry County. There’s probably nobody else doing student ministries like us. We have carved out a little unique niche. You almost have to here in the Bible belt. In a five mile stretch of Preston Road, which is 10 miles out of the city of Martinsville, there are close to a dozen little churches just like ours. In fact there are churches all over Martinsville and Henry County and most of them are small and by that I mean under 50 in worship attendance. With all that competition, we have to do something different and we are AND we are making a difference in the lives of 15 to 25 students each week.

But God has called us to be set apart from the world — He has chosen us to be holy — and he has chosen us to tell others about the wonderful things of God and to do good deeds so that others can see God’s light. In John 14, we are reminded that Jesus said, ““I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” We live in a world that says there are many paths to God, but Jesus states it plainly that only through faith in Him can we have eternal life.