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Fall-Winter 2024
Sermon & Study Series
Change on the Journey
This sermon and study series meets us as we enter the season of Return: Victorious Living in the First Afrikan liturgical calendar. The adinkra symbol for this season is Akoma Ntoaso (Twi for “linked hearts” (see the symbol in the upper right hand corner)).
We continue to investigate Yeshua’s journey to Jerusalem.Change is constantly occurring. There are frequent questions, serious opposition, a few opportunities, and several hindrances on the journey. Life is like that – questions, opportunity, opposition, hindrances, change. Change is the primary reality in our lives. In fact, the famed author and beloved ancestor Octavia Butler says, “change is constant…. God is change.”
As we take this journey with Yeshua, let’s endeavor to see that change is a necessary aspect of life; that it is life’s most enduring experience and is, as a consequence, where the deity is likely to be found. It is not simply that the deity is change. It is also that change is the deity.
The thing that makes life with all of its changes manageable is purpose. Purpose can be the thing, the attitude of mind and heart, that centers us; that stabilizes us as we take the journey with Yeshua to our own Jerusalem- Freedom. For our enslaved ancestors Freedom is the only heaven they desired.
Yeshua possessed a purpose or mission as he traveled. His destination was sure. His purpose as he traveled was to proclaim the good news (gospel) of the Kingdom of Yahweh which was Freedom for him and the masses of poor and oppressed Palestinian Jews suffering the tyranny of Roman domination. His mission to proclaim the message of the deity’s coming kingdom was the stabilizing force in both his life and in the lives of the community of students (disciples).
Possessing purpose is stabilizing in the midst of the ever-present context of change. But how does one know one’s purpose? Look at the students of Yeshua for just one possible answer to the question. Notice that none of the students of Yeshua were called or sent by him to change the whole world all by themselves. Nor were any of them required to go to school and get degrees in order to become experts in any particular field of knowledge or particular vocational skill. They were all told to share what they already knew about the deity with others, to live lives consistent with their mission to tell what they already knew, and to boldly lean on and trust the deity.They were called and sent to “transform consciousness” from a focus on the emperor, to a focus on deity who truly possessed all power.
No one needs to go in search of purpose. Purpose is at hand or, to say it another way, purpose is already in your hands. Rather than focusing on the ever-present, often maddening change all around us, let us focus on living our purpose boldly and without apology. This is the model Yeshua provides in the travel narrative.
Pastor Lomax
Sunday, October 6
Biblical Text: Luke 12:4-12
Sunday, October 13
Biblical Text: Luke 12:13-21
Sunday, October 20
Biblical Text: Luke 12:22-34
Sunday, October 27
Biblical Text: Luke 12:35-40
Sunday, November 3
Biblical Text: Luke 12:41-48
Sunday, November 10
Biblical Text: Luke 12:49-56
Sunday, November 17
Biblical Text: Luke 12:57-13:5
Sunday, November 24
Biblical Text: Luke 13:6-9
Sunday, December 1
Biblical Text: Luke 13:10-17
Sunday, December 8
31st Anniversary Celebration
Preacher: Pastors Hodari Williams and Mark Ogunwale Lomax
Biblical Text: Psalm 133
Sunday, December 15
Biblical Text: Luke 3:7-18
Sunday, December 22
Biblical Text: Luke 1:39-45 (46-55)
 Sunday, December 29
Biblical Text: Luke 2:41-42
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