Worship
Service for October 15, 2023
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: I will give thanks to the Lord with my
whole heart.
P: In the company of the upright, in the
congregation, I will praise the Lord’s name.
L: Great are the works of the Lord. They are full of honor and majesty. They are studied by all who delight in Him.
P: God’s righteousness endures forever. The works of His hands are faithful and
just. All His precepts are trustworthy.
L: They are established for all time and are
to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.
Opening Hymn – Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee Hymn
#464/90
Prayer of Confession
Lord Jesus Christ, forgive us
when we fail to acknowledge with gratitude the blessings which you bestow on
our lives. You gave your life so that we
may have a fullness of life we could never attain on our own. We are ashamed to admit that there are times
when we take the gift of your life in us for granted – times we pray only when
we have needs to be met – times when gratitude is a rare commodity in our
lives. Forgive us, we pray, and empower
us to embrace with gratitude all of our live and not just the good things we
like to remember. Jesus, healer and
friend, we know that you do hear our prayers and for that we are eternally
grateful. May our lives be visible
expressions of our thanks for your grace, mercy, and love towards us. (Silent prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: We rejoice in the good news that God sent
Jesus into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world might be
saved through him. Those who believe in
him are not condemned, but loved, accepted and forgiven.
P: 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
The Gift of Love
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
Lord, with your breath
you call all things into being. It is at
Your hand that we are here. It is at
Your urging that we have come to this place.
It is Your Holy Spirit speaking to our spirit that gathers us in this
room. We have come to worship, to bow
down, to listen to Your Word spoken, sung, and prayed. We do so, because You have called us out by
name, after you made us as companions for you and each other. As we worship this day, help us also feel
your presence among us. We are often
locked into our own little worlds and give too little thought to all that you
have done, not only for us individually, but for the good of the earth, your
whole creation. The creation that you
gave to us, not as an end in itself, but rather for us to till and keep your
sacred garden which we call our home.
Make us mindful that
the persons in this room today are as close to us as our own families. Make us aware and sensitive to their needs
and hurts, their sufferings and pain, as you are aware of ours. Remind us that we are indeed our brothers’
and our sisters’ keepers. Because of
that we lift up in prayer to you our most cherished loved ones…
As we care for one
another and have lifted up their concerns in prayer, we also ask that in this
time of silence you listen to the beatings of our own heart and know what lies
within. Hear our prayers, O God.
Help us live unto you
and to your most precious Son, who came to give us life. And in his name, we pray his prayer together…
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.
Hymn – Ye
Servants of God Hymn #477/38
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Psalm
106:1-6,19-23
Second Scripture Reading – Philippians
4:1-9
Sermon –
Stand Firm in the Lord
(based on Philippians
4:1-9)
Many of you know that I use Social
Media a lot. I post on Facebook and a
little on Instagram, but I’m also part of many on-line discussion groups. I have a very eclectic following and I follow
lots of completely unrelated subjects from science groups, antique car groups,
health and fitness groups, art and culture groups, cooking and baking groups,
linguistic groups, gay and lesbian groups, history groups, political groups,
craft groups, even business administrative groups and yes, of course, religious
groups as well. Really, no subject is
taboo for me. I love to learn about
nearly everything.
Almost all of the
groups that I belong to and when I post on Social Media, everyone knows me as
“the minister”. Because of that, I get a
lot of questions and feedback when it comes to religion and faith - even in
unrelated topics. Most of the questions
I get (which are more often in the form of comments) are about how Christianity
is no longer relevant; how God is a man-made construct to make us adhere to a
set of values, used by the powerful to control the masses. That idea goes back to David Hume, an early
18th Century philosopher and religious critic who joined the great
exodus of those who questioned religious faith and became more of a secular
humanist which was a movement that developed later out of the rational
enlightenment in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries.
I’m quick to defend my
faith, acknowledging some of their points, but using rational arguments to
debunk many of their attacks. Some people
on the thread, (for those of you who don’t know that term – a thread is a term
used for following a specific comment in an on-line dialogue); so, some people
on the thread often take offense at the comments or questions and can get very
emotional and attack back. That never
helps in those situations and often simply leads to the original poster to say,
“see….you religious folk are overly emotional and can’t have a serious
dialogue.” I usually try to point out
that their post about Christianity being irrational, quackery, a mere scam on
society can be trigger words as an attack.
So, when someone’s faith is called into question using such words, it can
lead to some people doing the same in response – feeling personally attacked. I try hard to get beyond those kinds of words
and have a rational dialogue. Sometimes,
I think they often just want to pick a fight and see who’ll take the bait. And someone will inevitably do so. They’ll fly off the handle, say something
really unhelpful and often to the point of the religious critic’s skepticism. And then the poster feels smugly justified in
their belief that ALL religious people are simply nutcases.
Having responded to so
many of these comments/questions so many times (seriously, it is constant) I
often wonder why I bother. Will they
start going to church because of my rational argument for God? Will I stop believing because they made a
good point about God not being real? As
far as I know from them, that has never happened. And obviously, that hasn’t happened from my
standpoint, either. So, why do I do it? Why do I even bother? I don’t know those people, they aren’t
friends of mine that I see on a regular basis, they are simply names on a
social board, so why?
Is there a growing
movement of secular humanism in our time and has the tide turned away from the
church? Is the church no longer
relevant? Have those constant comments and
questions about Christianity, or any religious faith, no longer being relevant gotten
to me? I have been a pastor for 35 years
at a total of 7 churches. I have watched,
as you have, over those 35 years churches dwindle in size with more and more
empty pews. So, yes, maybe those who question
the relevancy of the church have gotten to me and why I continue to defend the faith,
in spite of the continuing decline in those who adhere to it. Paul says in Philippians 4:1 – “Stand firm in
the Lord”.
I wish David Caird, a
long time member of Bethesda, was here.
He’d know immediately the answer to this question. Let’s see how many of you know it. Using the original wording; what is the chief
end of man? Anybody know?
To glorify God and
enjoy Him forever. That comes from the
Westminster Catechism, something that early learners of the Presbyterian faith
would have to memorize years ago.
Our chief purpose,
according to the authors of the Westminster Catechism written in 1667, was to glorify
God and enjoy Him forever. As I traveled
through Europe to visit some of the greatest monuments/cathedrals to the Christian
Faith ever built, I was often awestruck by their beauty, by the amount of craftsmanship,
dedication, and money that must have been poured into these buildings. At St Mark’s Cathedral in Venice, looking at
the altarpiece with literally thousands of gemstones – diamonds, rubies,
sapphires, emeralds, pearls, all inlaid in gold was enough to make this 21st
Century rather simple pastor reel with both awe at the beauty of it, but also with
some disgust at the waste of such opulence, knowing how much of that wealth
could feed the poor, or go for cancer research.
It wasn’t until I had some time away to reflect on it all that I
realized that each offering of those gemstones, each stroke of the goldsmith’s hand
to smooth out the curves along the altarpiece, each artists’ paint brush as
they illuminated the various figures in enamel was a sacrifice, a life’s work
dedicated to the glory of God. As I traveled
to grand cathedral after grand cathedral, I was reminded of people’s dedication
to God that often spanned lifetimes.
They dedicated their life’s work to each carved gargoyle, every pillar, one
after another of the amazing stained-glass windows. These are the edifices we built over
centuries to the glory of God. This
building, perhaps less grand, was built for the very same purpose. Those believers who lived before us, built
this place for the glory of God. That is
why we come to church – that is the purpose of Sunday morning worship. For us to glorify God. Sometimes, people on the outside of these
walls, only see the edifice. They only
see the activity on Sunday mornings when we come here to worship.
But that is not the purpose
of church. What is the purpose of
church? What is it that I defend so
vehemently, comment after comment in threads on social media? It’s not the edifice. It’s not the building. It’s not even Sunday morning worship. What is the purpose of the church?
(Some people will inevitably
give the same answer as what is the chief end of man?)
No…that it’s our individual
purpose. Each person’s highest purpose
is to glorify God. But collectively, when
we are all together, what is the purpose of the church?
I will defend the
gospel until my dying days because of these passages in Philippians. This is the purpose of the church. Paul says it and urges the members of the
church in Philippi to be of the same mind.
“Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in
everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be
made known to God. And the peace of God,
which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in
Christ Jesus. Finally beloved, whatever
is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is
pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is
anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have
learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be
with you.”
This is the purpose of
the church. I don’t care if we get down
to two people in the pews in the last church on the planet, this will be what
we do. This will be the purpose of the
church until its last breath.
We will be gentle. Our hallmark will be one of gentleness
towards the outside world. It will be how
we are known. God will soften our edges
and will wear down our sharpness. We
will approach the world with tender hearts and outstretched arms. Like Lot and his family ensconced in a city
of sinfulness, like Noah and his children surrounded by nothing but water, even
if we are the last believers on earth, we will not worry, for we know that God
has all things under His protection, held in the palm of His hand, but will beseech
the Lord in prayer with thanksgiving – even if it takes a long time to find
something to be thankful for – we will let our requests be known to God.
Finally, we will think
only about whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever
is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, and whatever is excellent
in this world. Actions are a result of
thinking and if we keep our minds focused on these things, our actions will
follow. And we’ll keep doing the things
that are true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, and excellent for
the benefit of the world.
That is the purpose of
the church. And I will defend those principles
comment after comment, question after question until the faithful rise up again,
as they have century after century. That
is why we are here – that is our purpose.
To stand firm in the faith, to glorify God as individuals, and to proclaim
in word and in deed the love, peace, and hope of the gospel message.
Thanks be to God. AMEN.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
God of
Grace, make us trustworthy stewards over these gifts. Help us live our lives and manage our
possessions that others might see the light of Christ within us and the way
that we live our lives. Bless these
gifts that we offer to you, so that they may do the work of Your Son in our
community and in our world. In Christ’s
name we pray. AMEN.
Closing
Hymn – The Church’s One Foundation Hymn
#442/401
Benediction –
O Lord, build a fire under us and within us. Enable us to joyfully go into Your world to
serve Your people and in doing so serve You also. Go in peace, dear friends.
Postlude
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