A Sunday Like No Other…

(Author’s Note: This was originally written just after the murder of Charlie Kirk. I present it now because it seems there are so many Sundays that follow events of national sorrow.)

Tomorrow…

I led worship on the Sunday after 9-11-2001. It was a strange day. Churches were filled with people seeking some sort of assurance for their lives. The issues behind that remarkable Sunday were corporate, not individual—the USA had been attacked! How was that possible? What would happen next? In unprecedented numbers, people went to church, seeking God’s help.

What will this Sunday be like? This is a moment of personal fear more than corporate panic. Who will our enemies strike again? Where? As the sun makes its inevitable journey East to West across America, each hour might be zero hour for someone somewhere. The enemies of Christ and His Church are everywhere. With churches on so many corners in so many towns, cities, and rural crossroads, their potential targets are numberless. Individuals with hand-held weapons have the strategic advantage of surprise. Instead of columns of warriors with drums and bands and flags, these are guerillas, hidden until they take their shots.

A crucial difference this Sunday is the impact one Christian life can have on the world. The person at the center of both the memorial services and the potential plots of revenge is one man who followed God’s plan for his life. Who among us could imagine that one dedicated believer could impact so many? But this is what we are seeing before our previously distracted eyes. Is it time for the rest of us who know and follow Jesus to divest ourselves of lesser causes to seek the Lord and obey Him as never before?

Pastors and Worship Leaders, you will be leading worship this Sunday. How are you preparing for this? I know you are praying and seeking God’s guidance. With the intense focus of so many on the content of the services in our churches, this scripture comes to mind:

Acts 2:17-18 ESV
“‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.

Whatever you have planned, seek the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Whatever you plan to sing or say, may it rise above human or technical presentation to the level of prophesy, truth empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Also, there is no way to predict how many people have heard the testimony of the plan of salvation over and over this week. Thousands have heard the gospel and they will be seeking a way for committing their lives to the Lord. Pastor, give them an opportunity to respond. Let them know an invitation is coming and then follow through with it. This Sunday could be the largest ingathering of souls seeking salvation the world has ever seen. The words of Jesus supply the best structure you could ever find for such an altar call.

Mark 8:34-37 ESV
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? For what can a man give in return for his life?

These three steps:

Deny yourself, repent of sins,
Take up your cross, find and follow God’s plan for your life, and,
Follow Me, focus your life on your relationship with the Lord Jesus,

are the first steps on Path of Life.

Psalm 16:11 NIV
You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Millions of people will take their very first steps on the Path of Life this Sunday. What can we learn from the man whose life we will honor today? Simply this: be faithful in your calling in the name of the Lord Jesus. As one of the pastors I worked with said every week. “Souls are in the balance.” Tomorrow it may be that a nation will be in the balance.