From Revelation to Transformation

1. Sunday, August 20
from REVELATION to
TRANSFORMATION

2. TODAY’S MESSAGE
The PURPOSE of REVELATION
is TRANSFORMATION,
and the GOAL of TRANSFORMATION
is CHRIST-LIKE LOVE
of NEIGHBOR and ENEMY alike

3. GOD MEETS US IN
HABITUAL PRAYER
An act of submission that leads
towards transformation…ACTS 10
• FORMATION Regular time in prayer
• CONTEMPLATION ἔκστασις/ecstasy/vision
• REVELATION Peter’s vision
• COMMUNICATION God-to-Peter; Peter-to-people
• TRANSFORMATION Love

4. Then Peter began to speak to them:
“Now I truly understand that
God shows no partiality,
but in every nation
anyone who fears him
and does what is right
is acceptable to him.”
ACTS 10:34-35

5. TODAY’S MESSAGE
The PURPOSE of REVELATION
is TRANSFORMATION,
and the GOAL of TRANSFORMATION
is CHRIST-LIKE LOVE
of NEIGHBOR and ENEMY alike

6. GOD SPEAKS IN
MYSTERIOUS WAYS Acts 9
• REVELATION Paul: Jesus is Lord/Ananias: Paul is a
brother
• COMMUNICATION God-to-Paul/Ananias…
• TRANSFORMATION Enemy  Neighbor/brother

7. Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats
and murder against the disciples of the Lord,
went to the high priest and asked him
for letters to they synagogues at Damascus,
so that if he found any who belonged
to The Way, men or women, he might
bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as
he was going along and approaching Damascus,
suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.
ACTS 9:1-4

8. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying
to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’
He asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The reply came,
‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
But get up and enter the city, and you will be
told what you are to do.’…Saul got up from
the ground, and though his eyes were open,
he could see nothing…for three days he was
without sight, and neither ate nor drank.
ACTS 9:5-9

9. Now there was a disciple in Damascus named
Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision,
‘Ananias…Get up and go…look for a man…
named Saul. At this moment he is praying,
and he has seen in a vision a man named
Ananias come in and lay his hands on him
so that he might regain his sight.’
But Ananias answered, ‘Lord, I have heard
from many about this man…”
ACTS 9:10-13a

10. ‘…how much evil he has done to your saints
in Jerusalem…’ But the Lord said to him,
‘Go, for he is an instrument whom I have
chosen to bring my name before Gentiles
and kings and before the people of Israel…’
So Ananias went and…laid his hands on
Saul and said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus,
who appeared to you on your way here,
has sent me so that you may regain your sight…’
ACTS 9:13b-17a

11. ‘…and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’
And immediately something like scales
fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored.
Then he got up and was baptized…
ACTS 17:b-18

12. TODAY’S MESSAGE
The PURPOSE of REVELATION
is TRANSFORMATION,
and the GOAL of TRANSFORMATION
is CHRIST-LIKE LOVE
of NEIGHBOR and ENEMY alike

13. Sunday, August 20
from REVELATION to
TRANSFORMATION

14. the belief that white people are superior to those
of all other races, especially the black race,
and should therefore dominate society;
a political ideology that perpetuates and
maintains the social, political, historical or
institutional domination by white people (as
evidenced by historical and contemporary
sociopolitical structures such as the Atlantic
slave trade, Jim Crow laws in the United States,
WHITE SUPREMACY

15. often uses the Bible to justify its beliefs
and the systems created as a result,
including, for example, the heretical teaching
(originally used to justify the existence of
chattel slavery in the US) that black people
are not made in the image of God,
do not have a soul, are therefore not fully
human, and are therefore better off in the
subjugation
WHITE SUPREMACY

20. TODAY’S MESSAGE
The PURPOSE of REVELATION
is TRANSFORMATION,
and the GOAL of TRANSFORMATION
is CHRIST-LIKE LOVE
of NEIGHBOR and ENEMY alike

22. Statements from Vintage Church
and Northern Seminary

23. A PRAYER AFTER
CHARLOTTESVILLELord Jesus, your Kingdom is good news
for a world caught in racial hostility.
We ask that you would give us grace
for the deep challenges facing our country.
O Lord, only You
can make all things new.

24. A PRAYER AFTER
CHARLOTTESVILLELord, we confess our anger, our deep sadness,
and our collective sense of weakness to see
this world healed through our own strength.
O Lord, only You
can make all things new.

25. A PRAYER AFTER
CHARLOTTESVILLELord, we honestly confess that our country has
a long history of racial oppression, that racism
has been a strategy of evil powers and principalities.
O Lord, only You
can make all things new.

26. A PRAYER AFTER
CHARLOTTESVILLELord, we confess that the gospel is good news
for the oppressed and the oppressor. Both are raised up.
Both are liberated, but in different ways. The oppressed
are raised up from the harsh burden of inferiority.
The oppressor from the destructive illusion of superiority.
O Lord, only You
can make all things new.

27. A PRAYER AFTER
CHARLOTTESVILLELord, we confess that the gospel is your power
to form a new people not identified by dominance
and superiority, but by unity in the Spirit.
O Lord, only You
can make all things new.

28. A PRAYER AFTER
CHARLOTTESVILLELord, we ask that you would help us name our part
in this country’s story of racial oppression and hostility.
Whether we have sinned against others by seeing them
as inferior, or whether we have been silent in the face
of evil. Forgive us of our sin.
O Lord, only You
can make all things new.

29. A PRAYER AFTER
CHARLOTTESVILLELord we pray for our enemies. For those who have
allowed Satanic powers to work through them.
Grant them deliverance through your mighty power.
O Lord, only You
can make all things new.

30. A PRAYER AFTER
CHARLOTTESVILLELord, we ask that you would form us
to be peacemakers. May we be people
who speak the truth in love as we work
for a reconciled world.
O Lord, only You
can make all things new.

31. A PRAYER AFTER
CHARLOTTESVILLELord we commit our lives to you, believing that you
are working in the world in spite of destructive powers
and principalities. Bring healing to those who are hurt,
peace to those who are anxious, and love to those who
are fearful. We wait for you, O Lord.
Make haste to help us.
O Lord, only You
can make all things new.

33. The Liturgists Podcast: Black and White
Truth’s Table Podcast: Strange Fruit
“ “: Embodied Blackness: Colorism 1 & 2
Drew Hart: Trouble I’ve Seen
James Cone: The Cross and The Lynching Tree
RECOMMENDATIONS

34. One of the scribes…asked him,
“Which commandment is the first of all?”
Jesus answered, “The first is: ‘Hear, O Israel:
the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall
love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your mind,
and with all your strength.’ The second is this:
‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than
these.”
MARK 12