Today we have a joint worship service at Olivet Presbyterian Church in West Elizabeth at 9:45 with Communion followed by a time of fellowship. Join us in person!
Worship
Service for March 1, 2026
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: A rich feast waits for those who call upon
the Lord.
P: God offers to us all the bounty of God’s
love.
L: How we have thirsted for hope and peace!
P: How we have longed for joy and love!
L: God continually blesses and heals us.
P: Praise be to God for God’s steadfast love. AMEN
Opening Hymn – My
Faith Looks Up to Thee #383/539
Prayer of Confession
This is the season of
turning. We are called on this journey
to turn our lives to You, O Lord, to turn away from all those things which have
harmed us and others; to separate ourselves from actions and attitudes that
demean and destroy. It is far too easy
for us to sink into the mire of self-pity and self-serving attitudes, wondering
why everything isn’t coming our way. We
want comfort, contentment, no stress, no struggle. Yet our lives are filled with stress and
discontent. We hurt, Lord. We hurt in our bodies and our souls. We hurt in our relationships with
others. How we must try your
patience! We don’t want to be like this
– we want to feel the warmth of Your love, the freedom of Your Spirit, the joy
of serving You. Forgive us for our selfishness
and stupidity. Heal us. For we ask these things in Jesus’ name. (Silent prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: You are given another chance! God has heard your cries. Turn again to the Lord.
P: We will find comfort and strength in God’s
eternal love for us. And in that love,
we are healed. Thanks be to God! AMEN!
Gloria Patri
Affirmation of Faith/Apostles’
Creed
I believe in God the Father
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the
third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on
the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge
the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins; the
resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
We put everything off
until the last minute, Lord. You have
invited and encouraged us on this journey, reminding us of the struggles and of
the hope. You ask us to let go of the
things that bind us from serving freely, but we have a nasty tendency to wait
until it’s almost too late - until the last minute. We can’t seem to let go of the hurt, fear, and
pain. On this journey, remind us again
of Your healing love, Your forgiving power. Help us trust the goodness and potential for
good that You have placed in all of us.
We have come to this
place to hear Your word, to sing and pray to You in hope. Enable us to find the courage to really
believe in You, that Your healing love may permeate our souls and prepare us
for true witness.
When we are tempted to
move away from you, O God, bring us back by your benevolent mercy. When we fail to use the gifts and the talents
that you have given us, renew us with the strength of your will and the wisdom of
your direction. When we would rather
stand idly by than to become involved in the passion and the suffering of this
world, move us to act with the gift of your compassion. When we surround ourselves with images that
would lead to our destruction, renew us with the Spirit of your live-giving
love. When we walk away from you and the
lives to which you have called us, lead us to repentance so that our broken and
sinful hearts might be healed by your Word.
Lord, hear also the
prayers of your people who lift up their worries and concerns… we pray now
for...
There are times when we
need you to hear the unspoken prayers of our hearts, because we cannot say them
aloud. Hear us now Lord, in silence…
Gather us as one
people, Lord, blessed for a purpose, happy to serve as we now join in one voice
praying…Our Father who art in heaven.
Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom
come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread and forgive
us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and
the glory, forever. AMEN.
Hymn – O Master, Let Me Walk With Thee #357/665
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Psalm
121
Second Scripture Reading – John 3:1-17
Sermon - Born From Above (based on John 3:1–17)
There is a man who comes to Jesus at
night. Not because he is evil. Not because he is insincere and is hiding, but
because he is careful. His name is
Nicodemus. He is a Pharisee, a leader, a
teacher or rabbi in his own right. He is
a man formed by the best theology of his day. A man who loves God enough to have studied God
and the teachings of God all his life. He
is a well-respected man who has built his whole life on getting “it” right.
And yet he comes to Jesus… at night. Night is where our deepest and most difficult
questions live, don’t they. They are the
nagging questions that won’t let us rest.
That won’t let us sleep. Night is
where doubt breathes. When we wonder and
fret and fear. Night is where certainty
thins out and the soul itself begins to whisper.
John tells us this story in the
third chapter of his Gospel — that long, conversation we read in John 3:1–17. In the story, Jesus does not mock Nicodemus. No, he honors him because sometimes the most
courageous thing a religious leader can do… is admit he or she doesn’t
understand. “Rabbi,” Nicodemus says, “we
know you are a teacher who has come from God.”
Nicodemus begins the conversation
with Jesus by an affirmation. Nicodemus
approaches Christ with respect and he begins with what he can see. But Jesus knows that Nicodemus wants more
than a passing understanding, he wants to understand why lies beneath the
surface, so Jesus immediately takes him there.
Jesus moves the conversation underneath the conversation.
“Very truly, I tell you,” Jesus
says, “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” That doesn’t make sense and yet Nicodemus is
sensing something important in the statement.
So, Nicodemus does what anybody does when something kind of resonates, when
the ground shifts, but we aren’t quite sure; he asks a practical question. “How can anyone be born after having grown
old? Can one enter a second time into
the mother’s womb?”
It is almost humorous. We all know that this is not possible, but it
is a deeply human question. Because
Nicodemus is thinking biology while Jesus is speaking mystery. Nicodemus is thinking mechanics while Jesus
is speaking transformation. While there
is something in the statement that opens up something in Nicodemus, he can’t
imagine starting over, he can’t imagine beginning again. He can’t imagine that God might not be
finished with him, yet.
And if we are honest — neither can
we. We live in a culture that tells us
identity is fixed, mistakes are permanent, and labels are destiny. We live in a church culture sometimes that
suggests once you have your theology settled, your categories defined, your
tribe chosen; that’s it. Stay there.
But Jesus looks at this very astute
and seasoned religious leader and says, in effect; You aren’t done yet, you
must be born from above, you must be opened, you must be remade. Not because you’re wrong about everything
you’ve learned, but because you are not yet alive to everything that you could
be.
“Very truly, I tell you, no one can
enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” Water and Spirit. What do those words remind you of? They are creation language. They are Genesis language.
In the beginning, the Spirit of God
hovered over the face of the waters. In
the beginning, God breathed life into dust.
So, Jesus is not talking about a do-over. He is talking about a deeper birth. A birth that is not about going backward — but
about going inward. A birth that is not
about closure, back into a fetal position — but one that is about opening and awakening.
The Greek word John uses — anōthen —
means both “again” and “from above.” It
is deliberately ambiguous. Because what
Jesus is describing is not simply repetition. It is a reorientation. To be born from above is to see differently. To love differently. To imagine God differently.
I love aerial maps, because I get to
see the same things that you’ve always encountered on from a flat plain view,
from a totally different perspective. And
sometimes that can be unsettling.
“Wait, you mean it’s over
there? Wait, you mean, it’s that close
or that far? “OH!”
Jesus continues, “The wind blows
where it chooses and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it
comes from or where it goes.” In other
words, you don’t get to control this.
The Spirit cannot be managed. Grace
can’t be scheduled. And transformation
can’t be engineered. For someone like
Nicodemus who was trained, precise, orderly, this must have felt destabilizing. But Jesus is inviting him to this new way of
being. To this new way of seeing.
Nicodemus isn’t ready for the
invitation, he is stuck in the old mode of understanding, so he asks again,
“How can these things be?” This time the
question isn’t about doubting what Jesus is saying; it’s about a hunger for
exactly what Jesus is offering.
Nicodemus’s mind is overcome with
questions. How can this be? How can I be more than the sum of my
learning? How can I be more than my
fears? How can I be more than my public
reputation?
Jesus answers Nicodemus by grounding
him in what he already knows, reaching into Israel’s story: “Just as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” Nicodemus recalls that strange moment in
Israel’s history, recorded in the book of Numbers when the people were dying
from snake bites and Moses lifted up a bronze serpent on a pole — and those who
looked at it lived. It was not magic. It was not to be a punishment. It was healing through honest seeing of what
God could do. The very thing that
wounded them was lifted up so they could confront it and be healed.
And Jesus says: that is what is
happening now. The Son of Man will be
lifted up — not to condemn the world — but to heal it. And then we arrive at the verse so many of us
memorized as children:
“For God so loved the world…”
Not for God so reluctantly cared
about the world.
Not for God so longed for a better world.
Not for God so tolerated the world.
For God so loved the world. The Greek word is kosmos.
This is not just the church. Not just the righteous. Not just those who get their theology
perfectly aligned, like Nicodemus was so concerned about when he approached
Jesus that night. No, this is the
entirety of the world. The tangled,
beautiful, broken, complicated world that we lived in during Jesus’ day and the
one we live in now.
God loves the world. This is not a sentimental love. It is costly love. It is incarnate love. It is love that steps into flesh and
vulnerability and misunderstanding. God
so loved the world that God gave. God
gave not to satisfy some kind of divine anger.
Not to balance a cosmic ledger kept in the archives of the Heavenly
Library. But so that everyone — everyone
— who trusts, who leans, who dares to believe — and quite literally that means
everyone, may have life – eternal life.
And eternal life isn’t just about duration,
the length of time. Eternal life is
about depth. It’s about participating
now in the life of God. “For God did not
send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world
might be saved through him.” The Greek
word here for save is sozo meaning to deliver, protect, heal. So that we might be made whole, so that we
might be restored, so that we might be held in the embrace of God.
Nicodemus may have come at night,
but this whole conversation was about shedding God’s light on Jesus and
Christ’s redemption for Nicodemus and the rest of the world. We find out later how much of an impact this
had on Nicodemus because he will defend Jesus publicly at the tie of trial. And tater still, he will help prepare Jesus’ own
body for burial.
This man who came at night with
doubts and worries of his own, slowly stepped into the open and into Jesus’
light of eternity. That is what new
birth looks like. From the story we
expect it to look dramatic. But it is
often gradual and it is always relational.
To be born from above is to let love
undo your fear, to allow God to be bigger than your categories. It is to risk stepping out of the safety of
night and into the vulnerability of day.
And here is where this story meets
us.
Many of us may have inherited
versions of Christianity that were tight, anxious, defensive. Versions that defined faith by who was out
rather than who was in. Versions that
leaned heavily on condemnation. But
Jesus says clearly: God did not send the Son to condemn the world.
If your faith is rooted in
condemnation, it is not rooted in Christ.
If it makes you big while making other small, if it is less
compassionate to the stranger or the foreigner in your midst than to your
friends or family, it is not rooted in Christ.
It is not new birth. It is old
fear.
New birth expands the heart. New birth loosens the grip. New birth trusts that love is stronger than
control.
Perhaps being born from above today
looks like; listening before speaking, admitting when we were wrong, seeing the
image of God in people we were taught to fear.
The Spirit of God is still moving,
the wind blows where it chooses; in places we did not expect, through people we
did not anticipate, beyond the boundaries we draw. The question is not whether God is at work. The question is whether we are willing to be
born into it.
The invitation of John 3 is not
simply to believe a statement. It is to
enter a new way of being. To be born
from above is to trust that love is the deepest truth of the universe. To step into the light. To allow the Spirit to move you beyond fear.
Perhaps it begins with a question
whispered in the dark — and a willingness to be born into something new. May we have the courage to ask. May we have the humility to listen. May we have the trust to let the Spirit blow
where it will. And may we be born —
again and again — into the wide, relentless, liberating love of God.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Lord,
here is our gratitude for all that You have poured out in blessings upon
us. Let these offerings be a true
reflection of our thankfulness and a true measure of our discipleship. AMEN
Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper
Closing
Hymn – In the Cross of Christ I Glory #84/328
Benediction –
God has
called You to bear witness to hope and goodness. Know that You have been healed of all that
prevents You from serving God. Go forth
with God’s love and blessing to bring Good News this hurting world. AMEN
Postlude
