God's Mercy Remembered!

                                                                                                           Baptism of the Lord Sunday!

 

                                                                         Prayer

                                                                    Isaiah 63:7-9

1^st Movement:

 

We have just finished up the Christmas Season of the Christian Church year.  The Christmas season, recalls the birth of Christ through the Wisemen coming a few years later.  Today is Baptism of the Lord Sunday.  Baptism of the Lord jumps ahead and recalls Christ’s baptism and the start of His ministry.  It is also a time of remembering our baptism, remembering what it means, reflecting on our journey with God thus far, and recommitting our lives to draw closer!  We are also at a place in our secular calendar where we are starting a new year.  With that, we look back to the past year and reflect on what has happened.  Our text from 3^rd Isaiah fits into that mind set today.

 

2^nd Movement:

Our text today falls in a part of the book of Isaiah that Bible scholars call 3^rd Isaiah (Isaiah 56-66).  2^nd Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55) had been full of hope and promise while the people were in Exile.  One such passage is, AI will turn the darkness before them into light.@ (Isa. 42:16b) In 3^rd Isaiah, some have returned to their homeland, but they haven=t found fulfilled all of the promises of 2^nd Isaiah.  In regard to the darkness/light passage found in 2^nd Isaiah, in 3^rd Isaiah the people lament, AWe wait for light, and lo! There is darkness; and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.@ (Isa. 59:9b)   So there is a state of disappointment in 3^rd Isaiah, a sense of prophecy unfulfilled.  The purpose of prophecy is always to bring the people to repentance and such is the case here.  The prophet is trying to bring them to a place of not blaming God but realizing their own needs for repentance, so the prophet starts this section of scripture with our text for today.  The prophet says, AI will recount the gracious deeds of the Lord, the praiseworthy acts of the Lord, because of all that the Lord has done for us, and the great favor to the house of Israel that he has shown them according to his mercy, according to the abundance of his steadfast love.@  Isaiah says remember all that the Lord has done for us, remember all the praiseworthy acts, remember the great favor God has shown us, remember God=s mercy, and mostly, remember the abundance of God=s steadfast love!  Isaiah quotes God as saying, ASurely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely,@ but the people know they have failed God: they have dealt falsely!  Still, God became their Asavior in all their distress.@  Then the real clincher for this passage is that it wasn=t a messenger or an angel that did all of this, but it was God=s presence with them that did all of this!  God was faithful!  God hadn=t let them down!

 

3^rd Movement:

What about us?  As we remember God=s mercy, what do we recall?  God has helped some of us through times of loss.  God has helped some of us through sickness or is helping us in times of sickness.  God has helped some of us experience Spiritual growth.  God has helped others of us through times of depression or sadness.  God has helped some of us start new directions in our lives, maybe to college or to a new job.  God has provided for necessities!  God has given us shelter!  God has provided our needs!  God has provided our church with growth: baptisms, professions of faith, and membership!  God has provided new people to do some of the ministries in the church!  God has sent Christ: God has come to be with us!  AFor he shall be called Emmanuel, which means, >God with us.=@  God has claimed us in our baptisms!  God has been with us throughout our lives!  God has been faithful!  God=s steadfast love has endured throughout our lives, including the past year!  What about us?  Have we expressed our thanks for God=s provisions this year and throughout our lives: for God=s steadfast love?  Have we always been found faithful?  What will we do about it today? What will we do about it this next year?  Where will we go from here?  Are we dissatisfied with what God is doing in our lives?  Then, there is no need to look any further, the problem is not with God.  God is faithful!  Isaiah writes to bring the people to repentance.  Do you need to repent this morning?

As we encounter Christ at the table, maybe you want to repent and come to Christ for the first time; you can do that as you come this morning.  If you do make that first time commitment, let me know so I can help you with your walk with Christ, and if you have never been baptized, we can talk about your baptism.  For all of us, maybe, as you have reflected, you have found some things you need to put behind or repent of and start out anew in this new year?  You can do that as you encounter Christ at the table! 

After communion, we will have a Congregational reaffirmation of baptism.  This is not a baptism.  For us who have been baptized, it is a remembering of God’s faithfulness throughout our lives.  It is remembering we are claimed by God!  It is a reminder of our vows to God and the church and a renewal of those vows as we begin a new year!  It is a chance to say thanks to God who has always been faithful, so, as we have a Congregational reaffirmation of Baptism on this Baptism of the Lord Sunday, I invite you to pray a prayer of thanks and rededication.  I can=t think of a better way to start out the new year!

Prayer of Confession

Service of Communion

                                             Congregational Reaffirmation of Baptism

Who is This Baby?

 Epiphany Sunday!

 

                            Prayer

                      Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

 

1st Movement

 

When I graduated from High School in 1977, I hadn't even seen a Personal Computer.  In the sixties, we had experienced the Apollo Space flights and we had seen the big room-size computers on T.V., and we were taught that this was going to be a coming thing.  Everything was going to go to computers because it made everything so easy.  I think Personal Computers had been made, but they were so expensive that the common person or a small business couldn't afford to own one.  For the most part, everything was still done by hand, by typewriter, or by files in filing cabinets. Yes, I guess I am that old!  When I started to college in 1992, one of the first classes they enrolled me in was Computing Essentials.  When I sat down behind my first computer among others who had considerable more exposure to computers than I had, I was somewhat terrified.  I do not know what I thought the computer was going to do to me, but I know my heart was beating very rapidly.  The class went well and I learned to use WordPerfect 5.1 on a Dos IBM PC.  When I say it went well, that does not mean it was always easy.  I can remember having a lot of confusion about whether I was in a program or not!  You would exit from WordPerfect.  You would exit from the print screen.  You would exit from the menu that they had set up on the computer.  The teacher would tell us to exit out to DOS, and I didn't know when I was there.  It was all quite confusing to this seventies kid who had never seen a computer. 

I can remember two things that really opened my eyes to what was going on.  First, a parishioner I had at the time gave me a 286 PC that had WordPerfect 5.1 on it.  I got a bunch of shareware from the College library and my brother-in-law showed me how to set up a Menu and install these programs.  As I worked in DOS and did this my eyes were opened.  The other time was when I took a programming language called Turbo Pascal.  I learned that files with the extension .exe were executable files and were going to do something.  These were the programs!  My eyes were opened!  An Ah Hah moment!  These were Epiphanies.  That is what an Epiphany is:  an Ah Hah moment.

 

2nd movement

In our scripture today, we have an Epiphany: an Ah Hah moment.  Jesus had been born the cute little baby in Bethlehem.  He had been raised like any other little boy.  He had helped his dad in the carpenter shop.  He had played in the streets with the other kids.  He had grown up in the shadow of being an illegitimate child; after all, only his parents really knew otherwise.  Today, he comes to John to be baptized.  After his baptism, a dove descends from Heaven and a voice from Heaven declares, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."  Ah Hah!  He isn't an illegitimate child but a son of the creator God:  the God of the universe, the God of the Hebrew people!  And this is to be a new beginning to be associated with the time that the Dove came back to Noah with the Olive twig.  The Noah story is about a new beginning!  It is about resetting the world with a new start!  This would be a new beginning!  Jesus as the God-man: the Savior of the world!

It is appropriate that as we conclude the Christmas season and we look at the Epiphanies of who this baby is, we realize as the Wisemen (who by the way were gentile (outsiders)) came to the realization that this baby was a King and brought gifts fitting for a king. We realize today the Epiphany that this child who grew up as any other child was indeed God’s son.  We realize the Epiphany that this Jesus brings a new beginning after we have messed the first one up!  It is also appropriate as we begin a new year that we think of this new beginning in Christ and give the year and ourselves to God!

3rd movement

Now we can understand!  As we take Communion together today, remember who Jesus is.  He isn't just the cute baby of Christmas, but he is the Son of God.  He is our Savior.  He is God in the flesh.  He is the one in whom we can place our Hope!

As we have an anointing of hands, pledge to let God use you this new year! Thanks be to God!

 

Prayer of Confession

Service of Communion and Anointing of Hands

Surprising Recipients!

 Christmas Eve. Service!

                            Prayer

                          Luke 2:1-20

Movement 1:

     That time is here, that time we have been preparing for! Tonight begins the celebration of Christmas, and we continue the celebration for 12 days.  Next Sunday will be the 1^st Sunday of Christmas.  The following Sunday will be Epiphany Sunday when we talk about the aha moments of who this baby really is!

 

     For tonight, we are taking a fresh look at the birth narrative.  As we look at Luke’s gospel, the angels first proclaim the birth of Christ to the shepherds in the fields keeping watch over the flocks by night.  Let’s look at the angel proclamation and the surprise recipients of this message.

 

Movement 2:

    What about the Angelic proclamation?  “Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” ( 10b-11)

     This sums up what Luke believes about Jesus.  He is of the House of David.  He is our Savior!  Matthew gets close to this one for he says “You are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” He is the Messiah!  The Jews were waiting for the Messiah. He was expected to be of the House of David, so the Angels have already proclaimed that Jesus is of that house.  There were a lot of expectations around this: he would right the wrongs, he would set them free from the oppression of other kings, he was the answer to their problems!  Lastly, the angel proclaims Jesus as Lord! This language isn’t used in the early birth accounts.  Lord means master!  This baby would be our master.  He would be the Lord of all creation!  This was an awesome declaration from the angels.  This was the message the apostles would later preach about Jesus. (Acts 2:14-36) What I want to look at tonight is who was this message delivered to?  The Shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night.

 

Movement 3:

     The modern reader could get lost to the real message here.  We think of shepherds as the people who took care of the sheep.  They would go after the one that was lost. They would protect them from animals that would harm.  We use shepherd language to describe the pastoral care of a pastor for the congregants.  The shepherds are the cute figures who appear in the manger scene.  We have a very positive view of the shepherds!

     While the shepherds did underscore Jesus’ association with the line of David, shepherding was a despised occupation at the time of the birth of Christ!  Shepherds were considered shiftless, dishonest people who grazed their flocks on other people’s land! (New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary) So it is not by accident that Luke’s gospel has the proclamation made these lowly shepherds. These are the surprising recipients of this very important message of the birth of the Christ!  In Luke’s gospel, Jesus was not sent to the kings or even the religious people who thought they had it all together. That would have been the expectation for the Messiah; after all, he was of the lineage of King David, but Jesus was sent to the lowly and to the outcast.   

    What does this say to us? Well to borrow from John’s gospel, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that whosoever believes…” John 3:16.  Jesus came to all people, none excluded!  That does include us, but we do not need to think too highly of ourselves; we all need God’s Grace.  We cannot make it on our own; we have all sinned and messed that up!  Luke would have us also realize that Jesus not only came for us but also to the lowly and outcast of our society.  We do not need to forget that.  We need to widen the scope of who we invite, none excluded!  We need to ponder that this Christmas! We need to swing the doors open wide to a world that desperately needs to hear that God loves them!  That is the message of the “Surprising Recipients” of the message of the birth of the Christ child!

      As our musicians play a selection of music, you are invited to bring your special end of year Christmas offering up and pick up a candle, form a circle around the sanctuary, and we will light the candles and sing “Silent Night.”  Ponder the meaning of the “Surprising Recipients” as we begin the celebration of Christmas this year!

 

                      Candlelight service

Benediction

What are We Giving for Christmas?

                                            4th Sunday of Advent!

Before the message:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GefiYHM00Y

                

Intro.

A.   Christmas is very rapidly approaching us!

 

B.   Christmas is a time of giving gifts as we remember

God's greatest gift to us, Christ!

 

Trans.

I want to reflect for a little while this morning on

what we are giving for Christmas.

 

                             Prayer

                       Rom. 5:15-18, & 21

 

I.      First let's look at what we've been given for Christmas.

 

  What it all boils down to in this baby born in Bethlehem is:

 

A.   We've been given grace. (vs. 15)

1.   After humankind (we) chose sin and that sin

              separated us from God, God chose to give us grace!

2.   God gave us a new chance that we didn't deserve.

 

B.   We've been given justification! (vs. 16)

1.   Because of what God has done in Christ, we are

back in fellowship with God.

2.   Just-as-if we hadn't sinned.

 

C.   We've been given the gift of dominion in life through

          Jesus Christ! (vs. 17)

1.   We can be conquerors now!  We are a part of the

kingdom of God now!

2.   Christ can help us through this life now!  He can make a difference in our lives now!

a.   God/Christ doesn't promise us a bed of roses

in this life.

b.   But Christ promises to be here with us

through the work of the Holy Spirit.  We

talked about that a couple weeks ago in the message!

 

D.   We've been given the gift of eternal life through Jesus  Christ our Lord! (vs. 18&21)

1.   Christ will not only help us through this life.

We will also receive eternal life!

2.   In Heaven where we will have fellowship with God 

forever and where there will be no hurt, sickness,

death, or pain.

3.   Notice, it is through Jesus Christ our Lord!  The Christ of Christmas!

4.   Again, we celebrate the eternal life with the

evergreen tree on Christmas!

 

II.  We've been given so much for Christmas, but what are we

giving to God in return?

A.   Are we giving God a life that says, "I don't need you;

I can make it by myself?"

1.   Perhaps, we have gone through life feeling we're

              O.K.

2.   We haven't realized how much we fail and how much

we really need God's justification through Christ.

3.   We have never really accepted Christ.

 

B.   Are we giving Christ a life of inconsistency?

1.   Today we are in church and concerned about God.

2.   What about next week?  Will we be just as

concerned then?  What about next Sunday?

3.   Our world and communities have seen two much

              inconsistency among professing Christians! It is

              killing us; Christ called it lukewarmness.

          4.   We don’t need to just think of God on Christmas,

Easter, or for that matter only on Sunday!  We

need to be constantly on for Jesus!

 

C.   Are we giving Christ a life of strife?

1.   A life that can't get along with other people?

2.   A life that harbors grudges and won't turn them

over to God?

3.   Our world has also seen too much of this: too much of professing Christians that can't get along.  It  is a real shame that this is the only picture of Christianity that some people see!

 

D.   Are we giving Christ a life of hypocrisy?

1.   Do people that see us on Sunday see a different

              person than those who see us through the week?

2.   That is hypocrisy.

 

E.   Or are we giving Christ a life of true dedication?

1.   A life that has realized that I am a sinner and I need (and accept) the forgiveness found through Jesus the Christ.

2.   A life that wants Christ every day.  The desire

for Christ in our lives remains consistent, and it

is evident by our actions.

3.   We, like Christ, love people!  We don't want to

              fight and bicker with people, and if they hurt us,  we turn it over to God because we are still

              concerned about their soul!

a.   Our love brings us to care for people.

b.   Our love brings us to hurt when they hurt!

We can actually shed real tears with them!

c.   And we are happy when they are happy as well.

4.   A life in Love with Christ, that doesn't want to

hurt him any day or anytime!  It hurts us just as  much to sin on Monday at work, school, or wherever we are as it does on Sunday at church!

5.   A life that wants to share the wonderful Love of God!

 

Conclusion:    Christmas is a time of giving!

 

A.   A plaque we have on the wall reads like this:

"Your life is a Gift from God.  What you make of it

is your Gift to God."

 

B.   This is so true!  It should be scripture!

 

C.   What gift are we giving God this Christmas!

 

D.   As we encounter Christ at the table, let's give God our

greatest gift by committing our lives more deeply

to God.  Then we will really be ready to celebrate

Christmas!

Prayer of Confession

Service of Communion

Blessing:

 

May the God of hope fill you with

all joy in believing,

 

so that you may abound in hope

by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

What Would Christmas be Without Christ?

3^rd Sunday of Advent!

Intro:

     A.   What is Christmas to you?  (answers from Congregation)

              Possible answers: Love, gifts, family, Christ.

 

     B.   All these things point back to one thing: Christ!

          1.   Love because in Christ we see God's Love

              extended to humankind.

          2.   Gifts because Christ was God's gift to us.

          3.   Family because God created families and he sent

              Christ into the world as a part of a family!

 

     Trans:

Let's look at the Christmas story and then ask ourselves; what would Christmas be without Christ?

 

                            Prayer

                        St. Luke 2:1-20

 

I.   What would Christmas be without Christ?

 

A.   It would be a day without love because Christ showed us how to love!

          1.   No love for family.

          2.   No love for friends.

          3.   Children were possessions; women were

possessions!

          4.   The world didn't understand love as we do before

              God revealed it to us through Christ!

 

     B.   It would be a day without gifts because gifts are a

          celebration of God's gift to humankind!

 

     C.   It would be a day without the Christmas tree because

          the Christmas tree points to Christ!

1.   Evergreen represents everlasting life that we have in Christ.

2.   The lights remind us that Jesus is the light of the world.

          3.   The star reminds us of the star that led the                     wisemen.

          4.   The angel reminds us of the angel that proclaimed                the glorious news to the shepherds.

          5.   All the different crismons on our tree remind us

of Christ!

 

     D.   It would be a day without singing and praise because             there would be nothing to sing and praise about.

 

E.   It would be a day without Santa Claus because after all Santa Claus is believed to be a good person that gives gifts and that comes right back to the reason we give gifts.

 

II.  What is Christmas because of Christ?

 

     A.   It is a time of celebration such as we have in verse

     20.  Don't let the carols loose their meaning!

 

     B.   It is a time of Love, family, and friends.

 

     C.   It is a time of exchanging gifts.  It is a time of

giving!

 

D.   It is a time of remembering God's ultimate gift and what Jesus (God's gift) means to us!

 

     E.   It is a time of singing & praise!

 

III. After we realize that everything of importance points to

Christ, let's determine to keep Christ in Christmas as we shift our minds toward thinking of Christ coming into the world that first time!

                         

A.   Take time to read the Christmas story: Luke 2:1-20 this Christmas! Maybe take a nativity set and move the characters around while you read.

 

     B.   In your families Christmas, make it a special time of

          remembrance by teaching the symbolism of Christmas in            your home.  Gather your family around and talk about:

          1.   the meaning of the lights.

          2.   the meaning of the evergreen.

          3.   the reason we exchange gifts.

          4.   the reason we sing carols.

 

     C.   Don't let the commercialization of the modern day                Christmas rob you and yours of the real meaning of

          Christmas.

 

D.   For children you could capture the meaning of Christmas by planning a Birthday party for Christ sometime during the 12 days of Christmas, between Christmas day and Epiphany!

 

     E.   Do something to keep Christ in your Christmas.

 

Conclusion:

     A.   One of the best ways for us to keep Christ in our

Christmas is to make sure we have Christ in our hearts.

 

B.   As we encounter Christ in communion, let Christ in, draw closer.  There is not a better way to prepare for the celebration of Christmas this year!  If you make a first time commitment, let me know so I can help you with your new journey in Christ!

 

                      Prayer of Confession

Celebration of Communion

 

Baptized with the Spirit!

                       2nd Sunday of Advent

                          Luke 3:7-18

 

                            Prayer

 

(1)  Focus statement:

 

The one has come who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire, giving us reason to rejoice and to prepare.

 

(2)  Function Statement:

 

This sermon will cause the congregation to rejoice in the gift of the Holy Spirit and to yield more fully to the Holy Spirit in order to prepare for the second coming.

 

 

1st movement

     I knew a family as I was growing up who lost two of their children to death by natural causes about a year apart.  The family had 6 children, four of which were girls.  The four girls were in church, but the parents or the boys didn't come to church.  The girls sung with a group of girls at the church.  They were very active in our youth group.  We had prayer meetings on the school campus at noon, and these girls were almost always there.  We had cottage prayer meetings for the youth on Thursday nights and again these girls were almost always there.  These girls were probably some of the most active among our youth.  They were very likeable.  Two of the girls died: one in about eighth grade with encephalitis or spinal meningitis.  She came down with some type of hepatitis and as a side effect of this she contracted the other and died.  She had been healthy up until this time.  It was one of those things that you couldn't believe happened.  Then, about a year later, one of her older sisters died in about 10th grade with heart failure.  It was like any other day.  The parents got up to fix breakfast and get the kids off to school.  They called them in for breakfast, going around to their rooms and calling them through their doors, but this one didn't come.  They went again to wake her, but this time to discover that she was dead.  The autopsy showed that she died of heart failure.  Very tragic!  How can someone make it through something like this?  This is a real story; it could happen to you and me! 

 

2nd movement

     The only way to make it through something like this without getting bitter is with the help of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is our comforter, one who hurts with us, one who gives us what we need to make it through life, one who helps us to put life back together, one who gives us a purpose in life, and one who helps restore us back into the image of God thus preparing us for the second coming.  Our part is in letting the Holy Spirit do this for us, yielding!  As we yield to Christ, Christ baptizes us with the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit wanted to help this family put it all back together.  One of the girls in this family let the Holy Spirit do this; the last count I had of her she was still a happy, energetic person serving as a missionary with her husband for their church.  Many of the other family members literally fell apart.  They turned from the Holy Spirit.  The family had started to church after the first one died, but they had left the church again after the second one died.  The last account I had, the parents had gotten a divorce, and the father had become an alcoholic.

     I don’t share this to run down or belittle this family; they probably reacted like anyone would who had been given the counsel that they were given.  We all face difficulties, and they certainly did.  They had really received some bad advice from our pastor at the time.  After the first one’s death, our pastor had told them “God is trying to get your attention!”  Wow!  That tells them God did this terrible thing to their daughter to get their attention! God is a manipulative God!  God does bad things!  Well, it seemed to work; they got into church and were really trying to serve.  Then, the second one died!  What could our pastor say then?  God had their attention! Well, they left the church.  They didn’t reach out to a God who loved them very much because they had been given a much different picture of God!

     I wish our pastor had ministered to them in a way that said, this is a terrible thing.  Sickness and death are a part of life, but God is a God who wants to help you through this through the Holy Spirit.  Whatever happens to us in life God is working to help us through it.  He could have continued to give the family something to hang onto after the second one died had he ministered in this way.  He would have been painting a much different picture of God, and I believe a much more accurate picture of God and God’s workings in our lives!  I also feel sorry for that pastor who had this kind of understanding of God; I have to wonder what ever happened to him.  What did he do when tragedy struck his house?

 

3rd movement

     On this 2nd Sunday of Advent we need to rejoice in this gift of the Holy Spirit and yield our lives to Christ, so Christ can Baptize us with the Holy Spirit: the one who can give us a purpose, and can get us through life.  This story may almost seem so tragic that you would suspect that it was fiction, but it is not.  This is a true story with real people; I have not disclosed the names to protect them.  This type of thing could happen to any one of us; it happens to someone every day.  We are not promised that we will have no problems and that we will be sheltered from bad things.  Tragedy happens!  We need the Holy Spirit to help us through life; we can't make it on our own. When bad things happen, we need the Holy Spirit to help us be better and not bitter!  God, through the Holy Spirit, is working to bring something good out of everything that happens to us, but we have to let God.  We can’t run from God. It may not even be immediately noticeable to us; many times, we think “how can God bring something good out of this?”  We just need to trust and let the Spirit continue to work in our lives, and as we look back, we can see how God through the Holy Spirit has indeed brought something good out of it for us.  We need the Holy Spirit to fit us for the Kingdom of God.  Through God’s Sanctifying Grace, God works through the Spirit to transform us throughout our lives to become the best, most loving, most graceful person we can be, that masterpiece that God has planned for us.  As we yield our lives to Christ and are baptized with the Holy Spirit, we will truly be preparing for not only the celebration of Christ's first coming, but also, the reality of Christ's second coming.  

As you encounter Christ at the table this morning, bring all that you are to the table.  Bring your hurts, your pains, your concerns and let Christ through the Holy Spirit minister to you!  Yield to the Holy Spirit and let God transform you!  Trust in the Holy Spirit to bring you through whatever you are going through!  That is the kind of God we serve!  That is what God wants to do!

 

Prayer of Confession

Service of Communion