This past Sunday was Pentecost Sunday!  The day that Holy Spirit came and annointed the Apostles in Jerusalem after Christ had risen from the dead, ministered and taught for forty days, and ascended back into Heaven to sit, reigning and ruling, at the right hand of God the Father (see Luke 24:1-53; Matthew 28:1-20; Mark 16:1-20; Acts 1:1-2:4).

Beth and I went to Christ Church Nashville, a church in Nashville that was recommended to us by mentors in the area.  It is an amazing church whose preaching pastor is a Reformed Anglican Priest who felt the call of God to take over from the founding and retiring pastor.  It is certainly a mix of soul, Southern Baptist, gospel, and charismatic all rolled up into one church.  The worship is powerful and moving and the sermons are sound and discerning.  We had previously met with the preaching pastor who confirmed God’s call in our lives and interceeded for us at a moment where we were considering what to do about the coffee house vision God has given us.

I don’t know what we were expecting, just to participate in corporate worship and hear a good sermon.  But the sermon was preached by a visiting pastor, Bishop Thad Barnum of the Church of the Apostles in Connecticut.  He preached a message on Pentecost, but not one that was traditional.  His message was from Romans 5:1:5…

¹ Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ²Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, andwe rejoice in hope of the glory of God. ³More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

He confessed that for too long he had been a 1,2,5 Christian.  That is:  putting on the “happy face” that all is well and that all is wonderful while we are at church, even though we are suffering and going through a rough time.  Or, convicting and condemning those in the church and those who are Christians that they aren’t “happy” or “joyful” or “rejoicing in the glory of God” because they ARE suffering and, therefore, can’t really be “Christ-like.”  However, his point was that CHRIST SUFFERED and we, as Christians, who have taken on and been given the name of Christ, WILL SUFFER and that we should REJOICE in suffering knowing that it “produces endurance…and character.”  We should also rejoice because Christ promised that he would send the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, and that He would be with us ALWAYS!!

It is these very times that we are suffering that the enemy wants us to think that we are ALONE, but we have Christ’s promise from Matthew 28:20

I am with you always, to the end of the age.