36 days ago we started to pray for our families. That Sunday was really hard for me because a day before Rita got the news that her Mom was sick and probably she had to go home, and as you know she went back to Hungary.

So we started to pray for our blood families and church families and during Sundays I told you how God blessed us with our neighbors who came to the manse during this time but I had a not so good feeling knowing that our we won’t have lood family here. You know it’s hard to speak about families when our family is far away. But one Monday we got a call from Romania that Istvan’s parents were coming to visit us. And do you remember what I told you exactly a month ago? That we will invite our loved ones to this service. I don1t know how many of you remembered this and invited your families, friends but I am 100% sure that God remembered and invited our family from Romania. Do you know how far is Romania? They spent 24 hours with travelling from Spesiszentgyorgy to Kirkwall. And God did this for us, He listened to us and acted in love. Love in action was the main theme of February and God shown us the way how He does great things for us by His love. So today I can show you two people as a result of our special prayer time and I am sure that there are more people who were moved by God.

So let’s continue to pray for your loved ones and let yourself to be led by God. When we let God be the leader of our lives we will see great things.

I know that many of us have goals in our lives and we want to reach those goals. If you remember one of my most important goals for 2017 is to deepen my relationship with God. In January I didn’t really have a plan how I would do this, but God had. I enjoyed to spend time with God and think about my relationship with him, think about our families and church families as well.

Object lesson how to reach your goals...

You can ask Jesus Christ for leading and when He is your leader you will discover a totally new life and your faith will grow. You will gain joy, peace, laughter etc.

Those who are farmers and I think everybody else knows that life is growing. When you plant seeds you want to see them grow. This green liquid means growing. We want to grow in our lives, we want to be happy, successful, loved, but growing also means knowing more about God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit so it means growing in faith. But what about if we are blue like this liquid. We want to grow but don’t know how. We would like to know more about God, love more and experience special peace which only come from God but how? We need light, like this light liquid which means the Word of God, the light of our path. So let’s put our sometimes blue lives and the Word of God and see the results: green – growing.

Today when we have this special Family Sunday I have to give you a special invitation from Jesus. In the New Testament story he took three of his disciples and they went up to the mountains. They were led by Jesus and they grown in their faith. Why Jesus chose those three disciples? Why are we the ones who are chosen by Jesus today to walk with Him? Do we need to know the answer or can we believe that we are the ones who need this message, today we are the ones who can see great things then we can share our experience with others.

So let’s go to the top of the hill with Jesus. How many of you have ever experienced how beautiful the view is from the top of a mountain? Just remember how high you were, how small was the land under you. Sometimes we cannot take a breath, the view is so breath-taking.

And we can imagine the disciples, they are with Jesus on the top of the mountain and they experienced something unbelievable. Jesus went to pray on the mountain and when He prayed a miracle happened, He became radiant in glory and His face and clothes started to shine. And this happened to Him because in that moment He was one with God. His disciples who were there realized that wow, their Master is not only a wonderful teacher but He really is God. They had already heard about His teachings, and saw his miracles but on the mountain they saw and felt who Jesus Christ is. And that is why they wanted to stay there with Him especially once they saw two other people, Moses and Elijah standing with Him.

Peter said to Jesus: Lord, it is good for us to be here.

It is good for us to be with you and we wish to be with you every day, not only on Sundays, that is why we want to build a house for you. Like, Kirkwall Presbyterian church, we want to meet with you here.

Have you ever thought that you are on the mountain when you are with God? And from the Gospel of Luke we know that Jesus was praying to God when this transfiguration happened to Him. Do you believe how powerful our prayer could be? Everything surrounding Jesus started to shine too, and those disciples around him felt that precious moment when He was really one with His Father.

Coke and Pepsi objective lesson – our lives with Jesus is not the same when we are following our own ways.

With Jesus we are satisfied, we have everything we need, but the story has to be continue, the disciples had to come down from the mountain with Jesus. We also have to go home from here, and next week our Lent journey will begin, and we cannot stay here. But before we leave this church we have to know who is our Lord is, who Jesus Christ is.

The Bible says: “This is my son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased. Listen to Him.”

My friends, your Lord is Jesus Christ who the son of God, the son of our Creator who has power to transform our lives, who can save you but most importantly He is the one who is going with you when you leave this church. Jesus didn’t remain on the mountain and told his disciples that they should go home and remember what they experienced but Jesus go down with them, he didn’t leave them alone.

Easter is coming, but before that we have to face Good Friday and the cross and toward Easter and Good Friday we have a forty days’ journey, which we call Lent when you can be ready to celebrate with the risen Lord.

I wish you a wonderful journey of Lent, when you have some quiet time and you can be with God. And know that you are not alone, Jesus Christ is going with you. Amen