Today we will have a joint service at Olivet Presbyterian Church at 9:45am. There will not be a live-stream on Facebook this morning.
Worship
Service for May 5, 2024
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Sing to the Lord a new song, a song of
hope and rejoicing!
P: Praise God for wonderful acts of mercy and
kindness!
L: God has remembered God’s faithful ones.
P: God has poured blessing upon blessing upon
us!
L: Praise the Lord, all the earth, shout your
praise!
P: Rejoice, for God is truly with us. AMEN
Opening Hymn – All Hail the
Power of Jesus’ Name #142/43
Prayer of Confession
Easter is such a wonderful
season, Lord. Hope springs anew in our
hearts. As the earth is being refreshed
by the warmth of spring, so we have been refreshed and made new by the
resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
we want to stay in this euphoria forever. But You have called us to go into the valley,
to those who need to hear of Your love and to feel Your caring presence. In his words of hope, Jesus prepared his
disciples to be witnesses. We have heard
these words before, but far too often, we have turned our backs to this
message. We don’t quite believe that we
are capable of actually living our whole lives in Your love. So, we act in ways that are often neglectful
and hurtful of others. We take more time
pampering ourselves than we do helping other people. It is easier to justify our selfish desires
than it is to witness to Your transforming love. Stop us in our tracks, O Lord. Turn us around. Help us face our weakness and Your forgiving
grace. Heal us of our sins and place us
again on the paths of peace. We ask this
in Jesus’ Name. (Silent prayers are
offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: God has remembered God’s steadfast love to
all the people. We are healed and called
to again be God’s beloved children and witnesses. Receive that healing love and share the good
news with all you meet, that God is love and in God there is no darkness or
fear.
P: We
trust in the powerful word of the Lord and know that we are forgiven. 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
Almighty
God, Your strength and might overshadow the darkness of the world. Your presence gives us joy and contentment,
even in the midst of suffering. Hear us
as we cry out to You this day. We ask
that You enter every situation of need with Your life-giving love. Teach us to trust You through every trial and
problem we face, that we might serve as a witness to others of Your unfailing
love and mercy. In the same way You come
to us with compassion and grace, send us to others with the light of Your hope.
In
is the mandate of the church, for its members to care for one another, for us
to reach out to the lost and lonely of this world, to risk the benefit of
ourselves for the betterment of others.
This morning, Lord, we shared our concerns, we lifted up to You the
needs of those around us. We ask for You
to wrap Your ever-loving arms around those who need to feel Your presence. We ask that You build up the strength of
those facing challenges today. We ask
that You encourage those who feel lost.
In those prayers, Gracious God, we lift up….
Hear our inner thoughts Lord as we pray
to You in silence….
In the glorious name of Jesus we pray
these things united as one, 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 – O God, Our Help in Ages Past #210/686 5 vs.
Blue
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Psalm
98
Second Scripture Reading – Acts
10:44-48
Sermon – The Gentile
Pentecost
(based on Acts 10:44-48)
Chapter
10 of Acts opens with a man by the name of Cornelius who is a God-fearing man,
but a gentile, when he received a vision to send men to Joppa for Simon
Peter. At nearly the same time, Peter
also received a vision. Peter’s vision
was about eating things that were considered profane or unclean to eat by Jews.
The voice in the vision said, “What God
has made clean, you must not call profane.”
This happened three times. While
Peter was perplexed by this vision, the men Cornelius had sent, arrived, and Peter
was told by the same voice of the previous vision to go this these men and to
share the gospel with Cornelius and his family.
Certainly,
some early Christians would have been tempted to see Cornelius and members of
his family as people for whom there was no hope of salvation. They would
have seen Gentiles like this centurion and his acquaintances as largely beyond
the reach of God’s grace. And even once Gentiles became Christians, many
Jewish Christians didn’t think they needed to share fellowship with them. I guess on some level they felt that they
might be believers in God, but not quite saved by God’s grace in quite same way
that these new Jewish Christians were and that sharing fellowship with them
would be a violation of their beliefs.
Our
reading this morning, however, challenges those ideas. It’s the story,
after all, of how the Holy Spirit comes on everyone in Cornelius’ household who
hears Peter’s message. It’s the story of what some call “the Gentile
Pentecost.” It’s part of the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise in the very
beginning of Acts that his followers would be his witnesses “in Jerusalem, and
in all Judea, and to the ends of the earth.”
This,
however, is strictly a “God thing.” After all, it’s God who graciously
gives both Cornelius and Peter visions that tell them to meet each other.
While Peter is initially reluctant to fulfill that dream, God helps Peter make
the connection between his vision and Cornelius’ desire and ultimately what God
desires – that the message of salvation and God’s grace be shared with everyone,
including Gentiles.
“While
Peter was still speaking…, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the
message.” Wonder of wonders – even as the initially reluctant apostle is
speaking to them, God “pours out” God’s Holy Spirit “on the Gentiles.”
Just as God had promised on the first Pentecost: “I will pour out my Spirit on
all people” (Acts 2:17).
Although
Peter’s words at the moment may have been eloquent and to the point about the
purpose of the gospel and the gift of God’s Son – his life, death, and resurrection,
it is ultimately the Spirit who transforms Cornelius, his friends and family
members. In that same way, Acts 10 is a bit reminiscent of the first
Pentecost in Acts 2 when Peter was also speaking, and the Spirit fell with the
“sound like the blowing of a violent wind.” Here, he reports, the same
mighty Spirit also “falls” on Cornelius and his acquaintances.
At
the first outpouring of the Holy Spirit, Luke tells us that the devout Jews who
were present at the time were “utterly amazed” by what was happening around
them. What is significant here is that at the first Pentecost, it was
only to Jews, gathered in Jerusalem for the feast day, that the Holy Spirit had
come upon. Here, the Jewish Christians
who accompany Peter are “astonished” at this descent of the Spirit upon
non-Jews. This, I think is what, strongly suggests that those beginning members
of the followers of Christ had previously been unable to imagine the Spirit
moving into Cornelius and the other “outsiders” or non-Jews.
Will
Willimon, a 20th Century theologian and pastor wrote in the April
17, 1991 issue of The Christian Century, throughout the book of
Acts the people whom the Spirit shocks are the ones already “in church” (p.
472). He writes, “At every step in the Acts program of evangelism and
church growth, it is the church that must be dragged kicking and screaming into
new areas of baptismal fidelity … Evangelism is a matter of a church in good
enough condition to keep up with the frenetic movements of the Spirit without
passing out.”
According
to both Acts 2 and 10, Peter’s shocked colleagues can even see and hear proof
of that restless Spirit’s presence in the gift of “tongues.” However, the
nature of the gifts seems to be different. At Pentecost the believers
spoke in languages that native speakers could understand. What they said
in those “tongues” served as a witness to the Spirit’s power. In Acts 10,
however, the gift of tongues seems to be more largely for giving praise to God.
After
this visible and audible outpouring of the Holy Spirit on them, Peter asks why
baptism should be withheld from these Gentiles. If you remember the story
of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, Philip was transported by some
other-worldly means to stand beside the road as the eunuch was passing by in
his carriage. Philip was taken into the
carriage and saw that the eunuch had been reading from the Holy Scriptures. During their ride together, Philip “opened up”
the scriptures to him. The Ethiopian then
says to Philip after hearing the message of the gospel, “Look, here is
water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?”
As
Cornelius and his household are baptized, just like the Ethiopian eunuch, we
have a problem brewing in the church. Houston,
“we have a problem!” And what problem do
you think that is?
These
new Christians were being baptized without being circumcised, which made them
unfit, unclean, and profane in the eyes of Jews. And this is when Peter is invited to “stay
with them for a few days”. And Peter does, in fact, stay in Cornelius’
household for some time.
The very
next chapter in Acts shows that Peter’s sojourn, his co-mingling with Gentiles,
baptized or no, doesn’t sit well with his fellow Christians in Jerusalem.
Interestingly enough, the author of Acts doesn’t report that they question the
gentiles’ baptism. Instead they question Peter about how Peter could
possibly have gone “into the house of uncircumcised men and” eat with them. This was simply against all the rules.
Peter
defends his actions by pointing to the Holy Spirit’s work on Cornelius, his
friends and family members, as well as himself. The work of the Spirit
that leads to baptism also, the apostle suggests, leads to new
fellowship. This story, and others like it in Acts reminds us, that we
might need to change our views about the “other” and our own views about what
we belief and what is essential.
Peter’s
defense of his actions at least implies that Cornelius and his household aren’t
the only people God converts on that day. God certainly transforms the
Roman, his family members and friends into people who receive God’s grace with
their faith. However, God also graciously transforms Peter from someone
for whom ethnic barriers are naturally nearly as high as religious ones into a
person who recognizes that the Holy Spirit smashes barriers left and
right. Eventually the Spirit even converts the other apostles into
recognizing Gentile reception of the Holy Spirit (Acts 11:18).
Yet
it’s highly significant that Peter stayed and ate with members of Cornelius’
entourage. Much, after all, both traditionally and culturally, including
circumcision, divided the apostle and his hosts. Yet God’s Spirit smashes
those old barriers, creating a bond of close fellowship and sharing.
So
not even our ideas of who is clean and unclean, hopeful or hopeless can hinder
the work of the Holy Spirit. We too may be shocked by the Spirit’s mighty
work among us, in spite of our prejudices about those in whom God does God’s
gracious work.
The
Holy Spirit sent Peter leaping over the barriers that separated Jews like Peter
from Gentiles like Cornelius. We, too, might need to rethink whom God is
calling into the circle of the Kingdom of God.
After
all, God doesn’t give the Holy Spirit to the children of God simply to keep it
to ourselves. God’s Spirit also sends God’s people into our
neighborhoods, workplaces and schools. For this Spirit’s power leads
God’s adopted sons and daughters to witness as well as have fellowship wherever
God graciously sends and puts us.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Gracious
God, you open your hand in blessing and give us life. Signs of your love surround us. Take these gifts we offer and use them for
the glory of your name. Make us living
symbols of your compassion for this world.
However we are able, may we reach out in love and mercy to help bring
your healing and light to this world. AMEN.
Closing
Hymn – Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise #263/33
Benediction –
Friends, you
have been chosen to go into this world with the message of God’s infinite
love. Bear the fruit of hope and joy,
peace and justice, with all those you meet.
May God’s peace be with you all. AMEN.
Postlude
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