Worship
for the Lord’s Day
April 25,
2021
A Note before we begin
this day’s worship:
Unfortunately, I had to leave town for a family emergency,
so we are back on-line for this Sunday and there is no YouTube clip for the
sermon, but there will be in person coverage for May 2 and May 9 at our regular
worship times at (Olivet Presbyterian Church, West Elizabeth – 9:45am and
Bethesda United Presbyterian Church, Elizabeth – 11:15am) with our previous
safety precautions in place. I will post
a worship service on-line for those Sundays (May 2, 9), as well.
As always, you can
click on the highlighted portions below which will open a YouTube clip of the
songs and the sermon.
Let’s begin:
Prelude All Creatures of Our
God and King, on the organ
Call to Worship
L: Praise the Lord who spoke the word which
created the grandeur of the heavens.
P: For the
brilliant moon and countless stars, sun and rain and blue sky we praise the Lord!
L: Praise the
Lord who spoke the word which created the fragile beauty of the earth and seas.
P: For changing
seasons; the contours of the land and sea; for heat
and cold, wind and calm, we praise the Lord!
L: Praise the
Lord who spoke the word which created trees and plants, animals and birds, and people of all races and cultures.
P: For the
environment which sustains boys and girls, women and men; poor and rich, young and old, we praise the Lord!
L: Praise the
Lord, the Word who became flesh and who lived among us full of grace and truth.
P: We have seen
His glory and from His fullness we have all received
grace upon grace – praise the Lord, Hallelujah!
Hymn All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name
Prayer of Confession
Gracious and loving God, as we reflect on the wonder
and glory of Your being, and the depth of Your love for us, we are conscious of
our failure to learn from You and from the sacrificial love of Jesus. So often our understanding of glory is linked
with prestige and power and position.
Jesus’ understanding of glory was linked to a love that was prepared to
go to the uttermost limits of love.
Forgive us when selfish pursuit of glory takes precedence over Jesus’
command to love one another as He loved us.
Fill our hearts with Jesus’ selfless love so that, like Him, we glorify
You in all we do and say. This we pray
in Jesus’ name. AMEN.
Words of Assurance
P: Thanks be to God for God’s abounding grace!
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
This day, we offer up in prayer…
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. 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.
Scripture Readings
Old Testament: Exodus
32:9-10a, Psalm 23
9The Lord said
to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. 10Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them
and I may consume them…”
1The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want. 2He
makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; 3he
restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.
4Even
though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me;
your rod and your staff— they comfort me.
5You
prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head
with oil; my cup overflows.
6Surely
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell
in the house of the Lord my
whole life long.
New Testament: 1 John
3:16-24
16We know love by this, that he
laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one
another. 17How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods
and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? 18Little
children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. 19And by
this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts
before him 20whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our
hearts, and he knows everything. 21Beloved,
if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; 22and we
receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what
pleases him. 23And
this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus
Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24All who
obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by
the Spirit that he has given us.
Sermon – Let
Us Love
Let Us Love
(based on Exodus 32:9, Psalm 23, and 1 John 3:16-24)
Today’s sermon message
could have been written from the vantage point of any numerous Bible
passages. But today’s passages from Exodus,
the Psalms and 1 John give us an interesting juxtaposition. These various passages seem to pit a loving
and shepherding God against a more wrathful God. The Bible is filled with these select
passages and stories about God and about how we should strive to be like God,
such as “Be holy, because I AM holy.” I Peter 1:16.
Which one is the God we
worship? The wrathful God that wants to
destroy us because of our disobedience or the loving God that embraces us as
lost sheep? Which one is the one we
share with others? Do we believe in a
dual purpose, bi-polar God? A God that
is loving one moment and wrathful the next?
To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure we’ve figured that out yet. We, Christians, have an awful track record
when you look over the long span of Christian history and activity in the world. We haven’t always lived up to the standards
of loving one another. And when we do
love one another, we can be awfully selective about who that love is extended
to. There was a “friendly” phrase used
quite often a decade or so ago which said, “Love the sinner, but hate the
sin.” I put the word friendly in quotes
because it often still translated into a less than loving relationship,
regardless of the sentiment.
Of course, we aren’t perfect people and we shouldn’t pretend that we
are. We all struggle with the same sins
that everyone else struggles with. Although
this list doesn’t exist as a whole in the Bible, the 7 Deadly Sins or Cardinal
Sins as they are known were widely adopted by the Christian Church from the
time of the 4th Century. They
include pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. The early church used these fundamental
teachings about sin as a way to help curb our evil inclinations before they
festered into bad practices and actions against others.
But, we all struggle with the same inner battles, the same heartaches,
the same demons. Maybe a good number of
us have learned over many, many years of struggle how to cope with them better,
how to ignore the voices that lead us down an instant gratification and easier
road. But we are no better than those
who are still struggling and still perhaps losing in those struggles. But the Church (with a capital C - meaning
the whole, not the smaller individual parts) over its long history, has not
always been kind.
To counterbalance the 7 Deadly Sins, the church also came up with 7
Heavenly Virtues. They are chastity,
temperance, generosity, diligence, patience, gratitude and humility. If, perhaps we wanted to put some of this
into a contemporary sentiment, it might just be this; “Be Kind.”
Why would I begin my sermon by saying these harsh things? Because, it’s been on my mind a lot
lately. Especially when I wonder what
future we as a Church (again with the capital C) have and why there are so many
empty pews? All the current polls have
said that there are fewer “believers” now than those who don’t believe in any
particular religion, including Christianity.
The response to a question I posed a while ago might indicate some of
the reasons. As we wrestle with
returning to some kind of life after this pandemic year and find a re-set
button, how are we going to respond to the growing non-church members and non
believers in our culture today. I
believe that I have spent most of my opportunities in the pulpit to show how
God transforms our own lives. As most
denominations continue to shrink and the biggest news is that even evangelical,
conservative churches have also lost members by huge percentages each year; my
personal, faith-shaking question is this; what’s the point in continuing this
“church” stuff? I asked this question
several years ago before the pandemic and I ask it with an even more serious
request for answers. I’m not about to
leave my faith, or my job/position, nor am I at some mid-life crisis where I am
questioning my choices and my continued energy for sharing God’s awesome Good
News. But I’m just wondering what others
think of the future of the church and it’s ability to REALLY lead in helping one
another transform their lives. Be the
kind of people that we were meant to be.
I got lots of answers to this question that came from a huge variety
of people I know and respect – believers, agnostics, people who claim to be
truth seekers, others who claim no religion, but still believe in the goodness
of others, and even some who would claim that they are atheists.
One of my oldest and dearest friends who used to belong to a church
but no longer does summed up nearly all of the responses I received;
“I think it’s really quite simple, Walt. If any church could just get back to the very
basics of teaching, modeling, loving the way Jesus did, many people would be
drawn to these churches. As it stands
many of them judge, condemn, persecute, alienate, and yes even hate people. It is what has turned me off of
religion. Because I choose to believe
that God loves me, and I actually feel it, I have the ability to love others. It’s that simple. Churches have made that simple message so
complicated laced with hate and judgments.”
We wonder why our pews are empty, it’s because we have forgotten God’s
most important message to us. We have
forgotten how to love. “For God so loved
the world that He sent his one and only son, so that everyone who believes in
him may not perish but have everlasting life.
Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world,
but in order that the world might be saved through him.” John 3:16, 17
Our emphasis has been
on God’s wrath and not on God’s love.
Yes, there very well might be a bi-polar God who is both wrathful and
loving. But the overwhelming message in
scripture is on the incredible love God has for the creation and that this love
is to be shared with one another.
I started going to Sunday School when I was still in diapers. My parent’s brought my sister and I up in the
church. We learned all the Bible stories
that we teach children. Here are a few
of them:
Abraham was faithful,
and God made him the father of a nation…and the lesson I learned was…so be
faithful like Abraham.
Joseph was a good
little boy (unlike his “bad” brothers), and God made him Prime Minister over
all Egypt…and the lesson I learned was…so be good like Joseph.
David had a pure heart
(unlike his brothers), and God made him King of Israel…and the lesson I learned
was…so have a pure heart like David.
Esther was an obedient
girl. God made her Queen of Persia and
saved God’s people…and the lesson I learned was…so be obedient like Esther.
And finally, somewhere
in the midst of all those stories, I also heard that if we fail to be faithful,
good, obedient or have a pure heart, Jesus will forgive us…sort of a P.S.
tacked on at the end of the story.
At 7 years old I
already knew that I wasn’t faithful, or good or obedient or had a pure
heart. At 7 years old I already knew
that there was evil in me, that sometimes I was bad, that I sometimes acted
more like Joseph’s brothers when I was mean to my sister, or like David’s
brothers who were skipped over in favor of the more athletic David, or like
Mordecai in the story of Esther who plotted to make himself look better by
putting someone else down. I wasn’t like
any of those Bible “Hero” characters, I was a lot more like the villains.
At 7 years old I
wrestled with God and how he could possibly love me when I was like none of
those nice characters in the Bible story.
What’s so bad about these Sunday school lessons?
Nothing really. Except that
they don’t tell the full story about God, they often leave out some of the more
interesting and intriguing characters of our faith, and they tend to emphasize the wrong things about
the gospel of good news, forgiveness and God’s amazing love. Apart from that, they are pretty good. But there’s more to the story than just
these. The message of the gospel – the
entire storyline of scripture – is God’s loving pursuit of people who run from
him as fast as they can and who live lives unworthy of his love. That’s why it’s called grace.
But our old Sunday School lessons used to teach us to be good little
boys and girls, and God will love and use us.
It’s the total opposite of the gospel, though. The wonder of the gospel is not the love of
the beautiful; it’s when Beauty kisses the Beast.
The Beast isn’t loved because he has changed; the Beast is changed
when he is loved. Joy doesn’t come when
he’s loved for his beauty; joy overwhelms him when he is loved in his
hideousness.
If the Beast were loved for his beauty, it would be an unbearable
burden. Any day he might be scarred, and
soon he will certainly be a wrinkled old man.
Let’s teach the wonder of the gospel…a lesson I never learned until
much later in life…and because of it…I often still struggle with God about how
wretched I am. But let’s show today’s/yesterday’s/and
tomorrow’s generations that God loves them…simply because he loves them and
us. In our beastliness. That he loves us before we are good.
That the storyline of the Bible is God’s Search and Rescue mission to
find the dying Beast and kiss him into joyous life.
How Abraham was an idol worshipper and God loved him and pursued him;
How Joseph was a narcissistic young teenager and God loved him and
pursued him;
How David was a murdering adulterer and God loved him and pursued him;
How Esther had sex outside of marriage with a non-believer and God
loved her and pursued her.
Our heroes weren’t loved because they were good; they became good
because they were loved.
A wise colleague of mine posted this on his Facebook page.
Most religions are
practiced or doctrinal religions. In
other words, they are based on performing the right practices or having right
beliefs. Christianity, at its core, is a
religion of relationships – with God, with others, with ourselves. If our practices and beliefs don’t lead to
loving relationships, then they become ends in and of themselves.
In most other religions
it’s the quality of the particular practices that matter, whether that be
strict observance of the law, proscribed prayer at certain times of the day and
year, sacrifices, meditative practices, or the like. Most cults, meanwhile, focus on the sanctity
of belief. It’s the purity of our belief
that “saves” us.
Christianity is a
relational religion. We have core
practices and beliefs, but their worth is only in their ability to lead us to
grow in love. Whenever we advocate a
certain kind of prayer discipline, a distinct type of mission, or a particular
biblical stance, we lost sight of their intent, if our prayer, mission, or
Bible study doesn’t lead us to greater love of God and everyone, then it is
false and should be done away with. That’s
why what practices we take part in, or beliefs we hold, don’t matter as much as
the love they lead us to. When they
become ends in themselves, we become judgmental, hypocritical, and insular. Think of the worst of Christianity, and you
will find Christians who have forgotten that their practices and beliefs must
lead to love, and instead are worshiping their practices and beliefs. Let us Christians, once again, be known for
our amazing love for one another as we had been in the First Century after
Christ had died and the church was just beginning to find its true message for
a world full of evil, hatred, and anger.
If you have been a
member of a church (and more specifically this church) for decades upon
decades, and it’s the church of your ancestors, here is my comment to you.
You are loved immensely
by God. Whether you struggled with that
as a child, as a teenager, or as an adult, it doesn’t matter anymore. I want you to know that you are loved by God
and by me. Your strength in the faith
and in loyalty to this church is what called me here. It’s time for us to really start living into
it. I want you to take that love of God,
that strength in the faith and that loyalty to the church to a new level of
love for others, I want you to share your strength in the faith with others,
and I want you to lean on that loyalty to the church as we re-vision our
future.
If you are relatively
new to the church, or questioning whether to become part of a church or just
seeking answers, here is my comment to you.
You are loved immensely
by God. Whether you struggled with that
as a child, as a teenager, or as an adult, it doesn’t matter anymore. I want you to know that you are loved by God,
by me, and by members of this particular church, at least. Your questioning, your doubts, your journey
is what will keep us vibrant and relevant.
And I want you to know that we, as long as I am pastor of this church,
embrace your heart, your spirit and your soul, just as God embraces you!
Rob Bell is one of my current pastoral and theological heros. He is a contemporary evangelical who has been
named as the father of the new emerging American Christianity. He has been slapped with the title of a
heretic by most of today’s conservative Evangelicals and Fundamentalists because
of his boundless love for others and his acceptance of others, just like a
First Century Christian. So be it! I love what he writes, I echo a huge
percentage of his story and his thoughts.
And if I were as smart as he is, I might have written some of the same
things, but I’m not, so I will close with his words.
Jesus came to give us life, a living, breathing throbbing,
pulsating blow your hair back tingle your spine roll the
windows down and drive fast experience of God right
here, right now.
word taking on flesh and blood.
And when you find yourselves tied up in knots, having
long discussions about who believes what, a bit like
dogs doing that sniff circle when they meet on the sidewalk,
do this:
take out a cup
and some bread
and put it in the middle of the table,
and say a prayer and examine yourselves
and then make sure everybody’s rent is paid and there’s
food in their fridge and clothes on their backs
and then invite everybody to say
‘yes’ to the resurrected Christ with whatever ‘yes’ they
can muster in the moment and then you take that bread
and you dip it in that cup in the ancient/future hope and
trust that there is a new creation bursting forth right here
right now and
then together taste that new life and liberation and
forgiveness and as you look those people in the eyes gathered
around that table from all walks of life and you see the new
humanity, sinners saved by grace, beggars who have
found bread showing the other beggars where they found it
remind yourselves that
this
is
what
you
believe.
In the end, the only true test of a faith begins and ends in an
incarnation – love made real through actions.
All else is straw.
Friends, Let us love one
another, as God has loved us.
AMEN.
Hymn Fairest Lord Jesus
Benediction
Nourished by the Shepherd’s abundant love, go forth to walk
in the paths of righteousness. Love one
another in truth and action. May God’s
abundant blessings abide in you forever. AMEN.
Postlude How Great Thou Art, on the organ
