Worship
Service for November 26, 2023
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Long ago God spoke to our ancestors many
times and in various ways through the prophets.
P: But in these last days God has spoken to
us through His Son, through whom He created the worlds.
L: He is the one God and has been appointed
heir of all things.
P: He is the reflection of God’s glory and
the exact likeness of God’s own being.
He sustains all things by His powerful word.
L: When He had made purification for the sins
of all, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High.
P: He was made greater than the angels, just
as the name God gave Him is greater than theirs.
L: To Him, and to God, the Father, by the
power of God the Holy Spirit, belong all our worship and our praise.
Opening Hymn – Lead On, O King Eternal #447/724
Prayer of Confession
We praise you God for the gift
of your Son. But even as we express our
appreciation for His Lordship, we also admit our independence often makes us ignore
His authority over our lives. Forgive us
when we live as if we are subject to no one but ourselves, as if judgment is
the only authority that matters, our desires the only ones that count. Forgive us for how we ignore Your word and
neglect Your law. Forgive us for how we
blind ourselves to the demands of Your holy will, for how we fail to do that
which has been commanded by You. Grant
us mercy, O God and mold us in the image of Christ. Help us to be your obedient servants. (Silent prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: In deepest mercy, God has rescued us from
the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son,
in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Sisters and Brothers, our sins are forgiven,
live in peace.
P: Alleluia and 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
Almighty God, you are
the great I AM, the beginning, the middle, and the end of all that was and is
and ever will be. We praise you for
being our all-in-all, our model for perfection, our source of all creative endeavors,
the fulfillment of all longing, the hope for lasting peace.
In our prayers today, we lift up to you…
As we bid farewell to
another church year, we thank you most especially for Jesus, your Son.
In his conception, the womb became a sacred space.
In his birth, the dark world was enlightened.
In his dedication, the temple was blessed anew.
In his early life, childhood and youth were honored as a
time for preparation and growth in wisdom and knowledge of You, our One and
Only Lord.
In his ministry, the world was set on its ear. The old became new, the outcasts were
welcomed, the sick were healed, the ignorant were informed, the innocent were
protected from harm. And all who could
hear, received good news.
In his death – cruel as it was – sin’s back was broken and
the fissure between God and humanity was perfectly repaired.
In his resurrection and ascension, believers received the
promise of eternal life, a life of glory lived in your presence.
In this moment of silence, we offer up to you our most
sacred, quiet truths…Hear us, as we pray…
Today we embrace Christ once again, the one who loves us,
frees us, and commissions us to do your work on earth. We give thanks for the reign of Jesus Christ,
in whose perfect name we pray together saying…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 – Be
Still My Soul Hymn #712 Brown
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Ezekiel
34:11-16
Second Scripture Reading – Matthew
25:31-46
Sermon – “Conviction – Becoming a Matthew 25 Church”
Jesus says that
ultimately, there are only two kinds of people - the sheep people and the goat
people. Do you know which you are? To be perfectly honest, I’ve never liked the
distinction that Jesus makes here because I would have separated them differently. While my friend Howard would have been right
there with Jesus. For those of you who
know me well know how much I love goats.
I think they are the best things ever.
While my friend Howard is completely terrified of the little beasts and
think they came directly from hell.
For those of you who have heard the story before
know about my experience visiting a farm for the first time when I was quite
young and seeing all the sheep. I had
always loved sheep, too, as I had made wonderfully soft sheep pictures in
Sunday School with cotton balls and anticipated cuddling up to that soft fur at
the farm for the very first time – only to be tricked and treated to a very
different experience of sticky, oily, scratchy wool. This cemented my love of goats and my dislike
of sheep, bringing me to think quite differently about how these two creatures
are separated in Jesus’ parable.
However, Jesus
uses sheep and goats in this parable to talk about the behavior of those who
truly follow Christ and those who just give it a bunch of lip service. I am not saying we are saved solely by good
works. But our behavior does a great deal to demonstrate our inner hearts and
the beliefs that we hold dear.
Ken Blanchard wrote the book, the One Minute
Manager. He is probably one of the
finest thinkers on motivation and leadership. At the university, he took an unusual approach
to education.
On the first day of the new academic year he
gave out the exam paper he would set at the end of the year. Then during the year, he taught his students
how to answer the questions. If they wanted to pass, they attended and
took careful notes. He wanted every
student to reach their full potential and get straight A’s. Why not? Jesus feels the same about us. He wants us to get straight A’s on the final
exam. He wants us to succeed. How we treat others reveals a good deal about
how we’ve been paying attention to his lessons.
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to
eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you
invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you
clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to
visit me.’…42For I was hungry and you
gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I
needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did
not look after me.’ (Matthew 25:35-36 & 42-43)
The test question on the
exam is this: When you see another
person in need, do you treat them as if they were Christ? Jesus already answered the question about who
is my neighbor or who are my mother and my brothers? His answer has been pretty consistent and
clear throughout the teaching of the gospels.
Jesus expects us to show compassion toward whoever we
encounter in need. That person becomes
our neighbor. That person is my mother,
father, brother, sister. And how we
treat them, may, by God’s grace, lead them also into a fellowship and
relationship with Christ.
1 John 4:19-21 says
this, “We love because he first loved us. 20If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother or
sister, he or she is a liar. For anyone
who does not love his brother or sister, whom he has seen, cannot love God,
whom he has not seen. 21And Christ has given us
this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother or sister.”
When we are in a good relationship with God serving God’s
just causes, we will be unaware that our goodness, our kindness, our
faithfulness, or gentleness toward others is anything other than natural.
Showing compassion and mercy toward the stranger, toward the sick, toward the
prisoner, is a natural act for all those who are following Christ. It
will seem like a burden, a chore, an out of the ordinary act for those who do
not follow Christ, who do not know the mercy of God and who only think of
themselves.
Ultimately, however, what this parable reveals is that how we treat
others is the way we will be treated at the final exam. Like Ken Blanchard, Jesus has given us the
final exam at the beginning of the course, throughout the journey, Christ has
given us many lessons to be learned, many stories to understand, many
life-affirming good news take-aways for us to ponder and live by. And at the final exam, he is going to
separate the world into two groups – the sheep people and the goat people.
A few years ago, I was convicted of my own misbehavior
during the reading of the story in the Old Testament one Sunday when I was out
of town. One Sunday, attending another
church while I was on vacation, I heard the story of Joseph and his many
brothers. They were sick of him. He was always going on and on about how great
he was and how he had been chosen for a higher calling than being a simple
shepherd like the rest of them. He was
favored by their father and they simply had had enough of him. So, they plotted and planned to kill him. When their oldest brother heard what the rest
of them were about to do, he wanted to spare his younger brother’s life and
eventually restore him to their father, so he convinced the brothers to just
throw him into a pit. But when a
different opportunity presented itself, to make some money and sell Joseph off
as a slave, Reuben went along with the idea.
His ultimate inaction to preserve the
life of his younger brother convicted my heart.
Sometimes I still struggle with this.
How many times had I wanted to do the right thing, had made plans in my
heart for doing the right thing, and maybe had even spoken out about the wrong
thing and yet, in the end did nothing?
Reuben was a reminder to me about my own behavior like the goats in
Jesus’ parable. It convicted my heart
that sometimes I still don’t do the right thing. Sometimes I don’t feed the hungry, or quench
the thirst of those who need something to drink, or clothe the naked, or visit
the prisoner and those who are sick.
A few years ago, our denomination set out to be a Matthew
25 Church. A church that separates itself
along the same lines – so that we will be with the sheep on Christ’s right hand
when the time comes. To act more in
feeding the hungry, quenching the thirst of those who are thirsty, clothing the
naked, visiting the prisoners and seeing to the needs of the sick. So that we are not a church that just gives
lip-service to these things, but is actually a church that is engaged in these
activities on a regular basis as the core of who we are and the foundation by
which we look at the world around us. Basically,
what is the need in the world around us and how are we treating them, as if
that person in need were Christ himself.
The story about Joseph and his eldest brother Reuben from our
well known Old Testament stories and today’s story reminds me that I still have
much to learn in my Christian growth, but that I’ve still got time to get it
right for the final exam. But, how much
more time? And what about you?
May today’s story empower you to be more like the sheep
than the goats in your service to the needs of the world.
AMEN.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Holy
God, who has given us so many blessed days, we give you thanks that we may
gather ourselves to share the life you have given to us through your beloved
Son. We offer to you our gratitude and
pray that you would bless these simple gifts that they may reach all your
children who are in need. May they be
blessed as we have been blessed. AMEN.
Closing
Hymn – Come, Thou Almighty King Hymn
#139/8
Benediction –
Hear the
cries of those in need! Go into God’s
world, enabled by Christ to be in ministries of compassion for all God’s
people. Love this world as God has loved
you. Go and faithfully serve in the name
of Christ. AMEN.
Postlude
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