Worship
Service for November 21, 2021
Click Here when highlighted for a link to the YouTube recording.
Prelude
Announcements:
·
You can join us for in-person worship at Olivet
Presbyterian Church in West Elizabeth, PA at 9:45 or at Bethesda United
Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth, PA at 11:15.
·
Bible Study – Brown Bag and Bible, will not meet
this Wednesday.
·
Huge thanks to our Deacons and their helpers
who made our Christmas Flea Market and Soup-to-Go a great success.
·
Communion will be celebrated at both churches next
Sunday which is the First Sunday of Advent, November 28.
Call to Worship
L: The Lord is continually creating something
new.
P: We are part of that creation, renewed,
redeemed, beloved.
L: Through all this change, God is with us.
P: Though we struggle and doubt, yet God is
faithful.
L: Praise be to God who continually blesses
us.
P: Let our hearts, our voices, and our
spirits sing God’s praises.
Opening Hymn – Lead On, O King Eternal #447/724
Prayer of Confession
Merciful
God, we come before You this day as those who are often afraid to confess all
the many ways in which we have disappointed and betrayed You. You have given us continual opportunities to serve
and love others, but we have withdrawn into lives of selfishness and
greed. We have turned our backs on
others in need. We have denied the gifts
You have given us. Where can we turn now
that we have run from You? Your voice
calls to us to come home, to come to You unafraid, to receive forgiveness and
healing. Open our hearts this day to
receive these magnificent blessings.
Help us understand the many ways in which You love us, and help us share
that love with all those whom we meet.
For we ask this in the name of Jesus Christ. (Silent prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Even though we turn away from God, God is
faithful to us. We are beloved of God
and recipients of God’s love and blessings.
Rejoice, children of God! For
God’s mercies are ever before us.
P: We give thanks 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
Choral Anthem: Alleluia
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
Gracious and loving
God, we lift to you our prayers and praises for all of your people. You alone are Lord over all the earth. The nations are in your hands, under your
judgment, at your mercy. For the whole
creation, and all who dwell within it, we pray.
Care for those who are ill, for those who suffer at the
whim of disease, for any whose bodies are weakened by illness, for all those
who face surgery and its recovery. As we
pray for those who are ill, we also keep in prayer those who care for
them. Give them strength Lord in their
caregiving…
We especially pray
for….
O God, we pray for the nations of the earth and for their
leaders. Come to them in the midst of
their leadership, their power, their opportunities for change. Show them the things that make for
peace. Grant those same blessings, we
pray, to the leaders of all the institutions of the world, in the realms of
business and education and service.
Grant that those who labor in those organizations that they may be just,
honorable and respectful.
Hear the inner groanings of our spirit as it reaches out to
listen to Your Spirit that dwells within us and hear our silent prayers this
morning.
And care for the church, we pray. Hold us all accountable to the one in whose
name we pray, for whom we await in his coming again, who taught us to 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 – Worthy,
You Are Worthy #screen/106
Scripture Reading(s):
OT – Psalm 93
NT – John 18:33-37
Sermon –
Christ
the King
(based
on John 18:33-37)
When
Jesus was born, Emperor Augustus was on the throne in Rome and Herod the Great
was King of Judea. Hearing that a plot
was stirring to overthrow his kingdom in the form of a newly born child in the
little town of Bethlehem, Herod sent his troops into Bethlehem to kill all the
boy children under the age of 2. Hearing
of the edict and beginning to witness the massacre of baby boys, Joseph took
his wife Mary and their baby boy, Jesus and fled as a Jewish political refugee
into Egypt.
No one knows exactly what happened to
them while they were in Egypt, but obviously they were given asylum and
protected until they could return to Israel once Herod was dead. Fast-forward 30 years. Jesus is being heralded by the Jewish crowd
as their new king. Jesus has been
arrested. The Pharisees in Jerusalem
said that Jesus claimed to be God – this was called blasphemy and according to
Jewish law was considered the highest form of sin and a person could be put to
death for doing so. Pilate was more
interested in the political slant to the accusations and wanted to know if
Jesus also considered himself to be King of the Jews. This would give him an excuse to send him off
to Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great who had sought Jesus’ death upon
his birth.
On the last day of his life, Jesus was
brought before Pilate. Pilate was a pawn
of the Emperor in Rome and of Herod Antipas, the ruler of Judea. On this day, Pilate wanted to know if Jesus
was, in fact, the new King of the Jews.
Jesus replied that his kingdom is not of this world. What did he mean by that?
Jesus
refused to answer that question and only repeated that others have called him
king, but that his kingdom is not of this world. Again, what did Jesus mean by that statement?
Jesus spent his entire life
ministering to the needs of the people of Israel. He spent months walking about the territory
healing people of their diseases, listening to their stories, telling stories
of his own. He preached and taught. His stories were filled with lessons for the
people to learn. He criticized the
people in power by confronting them in his stories explaining the concepts of
love, mercy, compassion and obedience.
One of those stories struck a negative
cord with the Pharisees. One day Jesus
was preaching to a large crowd of followers and someone in the crowd stood up
and asked Jesus a question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” This was a question that satisfied the desire
of the Pharisees. They would often go
about Jerusalem showing their piety, showing how religious they were, how
carefully they obeyed Jewish Law.
Certainly, all this would allow them to inherit eternal life.
Jesus answered by saying, “You shall
love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all
your strength, and with all your mind;”
The Pharisees could be quite pleased by this answer. All the pious could puff up their chests even
more because they showed this everyday.
They were quite proud to show their love of the Lord in the market
places and in the temple treasury. But
then Jesus slipped in a little something extra.
“And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” What? They looked at one another and thought,
well, okay. Sure, I love my neighbor, we
get along, we host one another in each other’s homes and help each other out
when necessary. That’s not so bad. Okay, we’re good.
Unfortunately, it was a lawyer who
asked the question and wanting to be perfectly clear asked Jesus, “And who is
my neighbor?” Uh oh, maybe that question
is a little too much. The Pharisees
might have thought, “Let it go, that’s enough, we’ve heard Jesus tell us that
we should love God above all and treat our next-door neighbor well, you know,
the people like us. Let’s move on.”
Jesus probably wanted to stand up and
shout, “Thank you so much for asking that question.” But instead, he just told them all a story.
A man was going down from Jerusalem to
Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and
went away, leaving him half dead. Now by
chance a temple priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed
by on the other side. So likewise, a
Levite (they were often temple priests’ assistants), when he came to the place
and saw him, passed by on the other side.
But a Samaritan, someone from the region of Samaria, which had become
the lost northern region of Israel - they were considered outcasts to real
Jews…but a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was
moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged
his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them.
Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care
of him. The next day he took out money,
gave it to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I
will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Jesus then asked, “Which of these
three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the
robbers?” The lawyer said to Jesus, “The
one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to
him and to the crowd, “Go and do likewise.”
The kingdom that existed during
Christ’s birth when King Herod sat on the Jerusalem throne was one that sought
to destroy all possible threats to it.
He had innocent babies killed. He
killed his own children who threatened to destroy his power. The kingdom that existed during Christ’s life
and at the time of his death under the power of Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate,
the Pharisees and the Sadduccees, also sought to destroy any threat that would
reduce their power. “My kingdom is not of
this world” Jesus said. Jesus’ kingdom
is one of mercy, of love, of hope, of peace.
It is unlike that of any kingdom found on earth.
WWJD – those four letters have become
quite popular to wear as wrist bands, on necklaces, and on plaques that hang in
peoples’ homes. Those four letters stand
for What Would Jesus Do?
In the time of Christ, Jerusalem was
under constant flux when it came to power.
If you read history, emperors and would-be emperors, kings and would-be
kings, sons of kings, nephews of emperors, commanders of armies ALL sought
power. They destroyed one another to
gain just a little more power. They
executed parents, assassinated wives, killed their own children to secure the
power they sought. Threats loomed at
every corner among your own people, let alone from foreigners who sought to
topple Rome, which was known as the greatest kingdom that had ever existed on
earth.
Jesus’ own followers expected him to
become a political leader, to suddenly transform into a military giant, ready
to slay the powers at work in Israel and overthrow Rome. They believed that God was on their
side. That Jesus was sent to deliver
them and reign in Jerusalem as their king.
But Jesus gave a very different answer to the question, “who is my
neighbor?” And a very different answer
when asked if he was king. “My kingdom
is not of this world.”
What would Jesus Do? Today, we celebrate Christ the King. If he were king, what would he do?
People
say that we might be living in the end days.
Like last week, “I don’t know what this world is coming too?” The people of Jesus’ day were convinced that
he was coming back VERY soon. That the
end of the world was near.
So many people are filled with
fear. But what are we afraid of?
As Christians we say that God is this
powerful God. That God holds all things
together. That God spins the whirling
planets and makes the sun to rise and set; orders the stars and knows their
number. God allows the leaves to turn
golden in the fall, to drop gently from the trees, brings snow upon the earth
to give it a time of rest and refresh it for new growth. Then makes the newborn buds appear, the
flowers to break forth. God knows when
every sparrow falls to the ground and has counted the hairs on your head. God causes the mountains to shake and the sea
to ebb and flow.
And yet, we tremble in fear. Of what?
There is nothing to fear. God is beside us at all times. God is there in your victories and God will
be their in your sorrow. God was present
at your birth and will be holding your hand when you take your last
breath. What is there to fear?
Recently, the world has seen an exodus
of unprecedented numbers fleeing war torn areas of the world and from
unprecedented poverty. Refugees seeking
asylum, people who have lived under threat of death in their own
countries.
What
Would Jesus Do?
On the night of his arrest, Jesus knew
that he was going to be put to death.
When the guards came to the Garden of Gethsemane, Judas betrayed him
with a kiss and a guard seized him. At
that moment, one of the disciples lashed out with his sword. This is it, he must have thought. This is the time to stand up for Israel and
overthrow the government. He cut off the
guard’s ear. Jesus immediately rebuked
him and yelled at him, “Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.” And touching the man’s ear, restored it to
health.
What Would Jesus Do?
He taught us to understand who our
neighbors are. He told us that his
kingdom is unlike that of any kingdom on this earth. He showed us the value of loving one another,
of caring for each other, for sharing hospitality, even in the homes of your
enemies. He ate at the home of
Nicodemus, one of the Pharisees.
What Would Jesus Do?
As a Christian, our response can be
nothing less than Jesus’ own response.
When we see injustice in the world, when we are given an opportunity to
help those who are in need and have the ability to help them, we should do what
Jesus did? Shouldn’t we. Today, we celebrate Christ the King. He is the king of a different kind of
kingdom. It is not of this world. It is not bound by greed or power. It is not bound by territory or material
resources. Jesus’ kingdom is that of the
heart. Is he king of yours?
Offertory
Doxology
Prayer of Dedication
We give you thanks, God of seedtime and harvest, for your
many blessings to us, gifts that nurture us in body, mind, and spirit. Receive these gifts of money, knowing that
they are also symbols of our time, thoughts, and desires. Use our offerings to build up your church in
this world and to care for the hungry and homeless and all who suffer in any
way. We commit ourselves to the calling
for which you have chosen us. We pray in
Jesus’ name. AMEN.
Closing Hymn – Come, Thou Almighty King #139/8
Benediction
Now to God who is able to do
far more abundantly than all we could ask or think, according to the power at
work within us by the Holy Spirit, to the Holy One of Israel be glory in the
church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Postlude
