Order
Sunday, May 29, 2022
Pre Worship Audio (10:15am)
Music 1 (10:30am) Worship Team
Cornerstone
What a Beautiful Name
Prayer Cricklin
Scripture Luke 13:31-35 On Line-Isaiah
Music 2 Worship Team
Spirit of the living God
It is Well
Message Hanging in There Rick
Congregational Response
Benediction Cricklin
Music 3 Living Hope Worship Team
Community (Gallery View) Rick
Closing Peace Response Rick
Closing Audio
Words and Voices
Music 1 (13 slides)
[Congregation Stand]
Cornerstone
CCLI Song # 6158927
Edward Mote | Eric Liljero | Jonas Myrin | Reuben Morgan | William Batchelder Bradbury
Verse 1
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly trust in Jesus’ Name
(REPEAT)
Chorus
Christ alone cornerstone
Weak made strong in the Saviour’s love
Through the storm He is Lord
Lord of all
Verse 2
When darkness seems to hide His face
I rest on His unchanging grace
In every high and stormy gale
My anchor holds within the veil
My anchor holds within the veil
Interlude
He is Lord Lord of all
Verse 3
When He shall come with trumpet sound
Oh may I then in Him be found
Dressed in His righteousness alone
Faultless stand before the throne
What A Beautiful Name
CCLI Song # 7068424
Ben Fielding | Brooke Ligertwood
Verse 1
You were the Word at the beginning
One with God the Lord Most High
Your hidden glory in creation
Now revealed in You our Christ
Chorus 1
What a beautiful Name it is
What a beautiful Name it is
The Name of Jesus Christ my King
What a beautiful Name it is
Nothing compares to this
What a beautiful Name it is
The Name of Jesus
Verse 2
You didn’t want heaven without us
So Jesus You brought heaven down
My sin was great Your love was greater
What could separate us now
Chorus 2
What a wonderful Name it is
What a wonderful Name it is
The Name of Jesus Christ my King
What a wonderful Name it is
Nothing compares to this
What a wonderful Name it is
The Name of Jesus
What a wonderful Name it is
The Name of Jesus
Bridge
Death could not hold You
The veil tore before You
You silence the boast of sin and grave
The heavens are roaring
The praise of Your glory
For You are raised to life again
Bridge
You have no rival
You have no equal
Now and forever God You reign
Yours is the kingdom
Yours is the glory
Yours is the Name above all names
Chorus 3
What a powerful Name it is
What a powerful Name it is
The Name of Jesus Christ my King
What a powerful Name it is
Nothing can stand against
What a powerful Name it is
The Name of Jesus
Ending
What a powerful Name it is
The Name of Jesus
What a powerful Name it is
The Name of Jesus
Prayer (3 Slides)
[Please join me in the Lord’s Prayer]
Our Father which 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.
And 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, for ever.
Amen. [Please be seated]
Scripture (3 Slides)
At that very hour same Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’ ”
Luke 13:31-35Music 2 (9 slides)
Spirit Of The Living God
CCLI Song # 23488 Daniel Iverson
Chorus
Spirit of the Living God
Fall fresh on me
Spirit of the Living God
Fall fresh on me
Melt me mold me
Fill me use me
Spirit of the Living God
Fall fresh on me
It Is Well
CCLI Song # 7021972
Spafford | DiMarco | Bliss
VERSE 1
Grander earth has quaked before
Moved by the sound of His voice
And seas that are shaken and stirred
Can be calmed and broken for my regard
CHORUS
Through it all, through it all
My eyes are on You
Through it all, through it all
It is well
Through it all, through it all
My eyes are on You
And it is well, with me
VERSE 2
Far be it from me to not believe
Even when my eyes can’t see
And this mountain that’s in front of me
Oh will be thrown into the midst of the sea
BRIDGE 1
So let go my soul and trust in Him
The waves and wind still know His name
BRIDGE 2
It is well with my soul
It is well with my soul
It is well with my soul
It is well, it is well with my soul
It is well with my soul
(it is well, it is well, it is well)
It is well with my soul
(it is well, it is well, it is well)
It is well with my soul
(it is well, it is well, it is well)
It is well, it is well with my soul
It is well, it is well with my soul
CHORUS 2
‘Cause through it all, through it all
My eyes are on You
Through it all, through it all
It is well
Through it all, through it all
My eyes are on You
It is well, it is well, it is well, With me
Message – Moved (6 Slides)
In 1997, we moved into a house that, although this was not disclosed in the purchase contract, it was a house with a Monster Problem. Not a problem that was huge like a monster, but a problem that was a monster. The monster lived in our daughter Grace’s room, under her bed. So, since we did not discover this problem until after we had moved in we were stuck with this monster in our lives. Every night, Andrea or I, would have to take a thorough look under the bed, often removing everything from under the bed to prove to Grace that we had made an extensive look. Eventually, the monster, probably tired of hiding from our prowling eyes each night, moved to her closet where the entire nightly process continued. Each night, we had to do the same thorough, only with more stuff to move around. Eventually, we realized that the best way to deal with our Monster Problem was to put a large lock on the outside of the closet door. While many security experts would possibly dispute the effectiveness of a locked closet, maybe even some would suggest the greater danger of an ornery older brother locking his younger sisters inside the closet, we felt strongly this was the best approach to our problem. And, to our credit, it worked. We rented the house after we moved out, with each renter wanting to know the purpose of the Monster Lock, most completely understood having dealt with closet monsters themselves.
Fear was a consistent life roadblock for the people Jesus ministered to as well for those who were opposed to the God’s path for Jesus.
(Slide – 1 of 3) Jesus said to a people who were stuck living a life of fear, “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body and after that can do nothing more.” (Luke 12:4) .
Fear, then and now, keeps us from living the abundant life Jesus calls us to. An abundance that seeks to let Jesus change us from the inside, an abundance that frees us to care about others as much as we care about ourself, an abundance that releases us from fear and ushers us into the abundant hope that will not fail.
(Slide – 2 of 3) “Do not fear those who can kill your body but cannot do anything else.” Jesus says.”
Jesus is challenging his followers, and us, to an inside change. A transformation that gives us discernment that carries us through an earthly fear, a trust that enables us to walk through problems and doubts, a determination to Love Others the way that God Loves Others.
(Slide – 3 of 3) Jesus does not call us to do God’s work, he calls us to be the hands and feet of God’s work that he is already doing.
Jesus was speaking to a people, much like us, who had a basket full of fears. A oppressive government, a religious institution, and a fear based on a failed version of God – seeing God as one that would abandon them taking away their hope yet still holding to the power to destroy them.
Jesus is really identifying a fear that is much greater than our fear of losing our earthly life, it is a fear of losing the everything we hold valuable.
Remember, Jesus went everywhere showing mercy, acting out of compassion, not with judgement or condemnation, while releasing people of fear and oppression – even though he was, along with the people, oppressed by a brutal government and a religious system in collusion with corrupt prophets and politicians.
Jesus preached love to a people who could have been easily swayed into a violent uprising to protect himself, but, instead, Jesus risked and gave his own life, giving up his own rights and privileges, in order to heal and free a people from their hopelessness and misery. Jesus chose to speak truth even when no one wanted to hear truth – to speak truth even under the constant threat of retribution.
This was Jesus’ mission, this was Jesus’ calling.
In chapter 13 of the gospel of Luke, we find ourself traveling with Jesus to Jerusalem. A journey that is going to take awhile, not because of the distance, but, instead, because of all the mercy and compassion being being expressed by Jesus all along the way. Jesus, through his acts of love, did not work to achieve religious, personal or political agendas, or even a modicum of personal gain.
(Slide – 1 of 3) Jesus engagement with the Religious leaders begins with an interruption. Jesus was in the middle of being the hands and feet of God’s work. A work that Jesus defined as he echoed the words of the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 61)… “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. The Spirit has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)
The purpose of the interruption by the religious leaders was to suggest to Jesus that, maybe, he should stop what he was doing and just leave, for his own safety. We cannot genuinely speculate about the motives of the religious leaders, were they truly concerned or was this an act of manipulation to get rid of Jesus. We can, however, notice that the tactic of the leaders was the consistently effective tool of fear. “Herod is going to kill you if you continue to do what you are doing.”
Jesus’ reaction is not to judge the motives of the religious leaders but instead he ‘hung in there’ and continue to be the hands and feet work of God’s work. He is not going to be detoured, he is not going to quit loving others, even if one of those others is set on harming Jesus.
Jesus is not moved by the threat of death, or any threat. These attempts to sway him to walk away, to persuade him let go of his passion, have no impact on Jesus. He does not let the threats of another person, the threats to his life, the threats against his freedom, his path, even his life are powerless. Jesus does not put his own rights, privileges, or his entitlement ahead of God’s plan, God’s love, of even God himself.
(Slide – 2 of 3) “I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.” (Luke 13:32)
Jesus is staring down death and personal safety, security, and privilege, and saying he will continue to do what he has been called, by God, to do, what we are all called to do. This use of of the words Today and Tomorrow is not an actual Today and Tomorrow – it is better understood that he is saying
(Slide – 3 of 3) “I will continue to do this today knowing that I am also going to be doing it tomorrow. And, when tomorrow becomes another ‘today’ I will be knowing that I will be doing it again the next tomorrow….and so on, a continuous work. And, then, when the todays and the tomorrows are over for me, I will be done.”
Sound familiar? A statement of the third day when ‘It Would Be Finished.
Jesus was holding on, hanging onto, God’s call. A call, to be the hands and feet of the work God was doing, to personally sacrifice what must be sacrificed. He was not holding on to a politician or a religious leader, he was not holding onto a political agenda or a engrained philosophy, he was not hanging onto a person, a place, an institution, a nationality, a privilege entitled by income, social position, color, sexuality, gender, ancestry, education, he was not holding onto his followers or any others that needed to be pacified, nor was he fearful of any other person or thing. He was holding onto God – and he was hanging in there regardless until the work was done, until the 3rd.
This has been a difficult week for preachers, especially those who have chosen to let go of everything in order to preach the truth given to them by the Holy Sprit. It has been a week where we have been confronted with our own Monster Problem. Preachers all over our area of the country have seen what happens to those who speak truth, who call out evil, who confront conspiracies, who don’t tow the party line, who seek to be the hands and feet of God’s workings. A recent documentary details just some of the churches in Arkansas who have attacked their own pastors, pastors are conservative, evangelical, often fundamentalist and far right – for speaking truth. I know many fearful preachers who are fully aware of the perils of preaching truth to their own congregations.
They, we, hang on to keeping our jobs, reputations, ministries, calling, and often let go of truth, of God’s calling on us so we can hold onto the monster of fear.
Full disclosure, I do not worry about those same things, but I have to admit, this has been a tough passage to prepare especially on this horrifying week. Many of my contemporaries who follow the same preaching schedule I use, probably shared my struggle this week with this passage, this truth, this Monster.
This week has undoubtedly created a Holy struggle for many. This week has surely presented many monsters hiding in closets and under beds.
This week we were hit with another school shooting, this one killing 19 3rd and 4th graders along with 2 elementary school faulty in indirectly another as one of the teachers husbands experienced a fatal heart attack while trying to deal with the death of his wife. Soon, it became obvious that leaders were not holding on to God, even though most were using God and characatures of God to cover their crumbling grasp on things that were not God. Fear took over, they did not revert to being the hands and feet of God’s work, instead they grabbed hold of fear, conducting unholy unifying unification rally, just blocks from the elementary school, while at the same time, unboundaried gun rights proponents, Christian/white nationalist, insurrectionists, and may others with a crumbling grasp, held fear based rallies to protect their rights in the face of possible actions. Later in the week found out that a second grader in another state had a pistol and ammunition in his desk. Insanity.
But before all of this, there was an internal report released Monday by the Southern Baptist Convention on the bungled handling of sex abuse within the denomination. This internal SBC report made public only after a handful of insiders insisted, detailed a 3 year investigation showing top Southern Baptists stonewalled and denigrated almost 100 sex abuse victims over almost two decades. The report, documented that leaders of the largest Protestant denomination in the United States not only ignored sex abuse allegations against church leaders but actively worked to discredit accusers.
Russell Moore, a conservative evangelical and former SBC official, expected no surprises to come out of this document. He had been aware for decades of the abuses, lies, and secrets for decades – his own reputation had been attacked as he sought to have action taken by the leadership of the SBC. Finally he left the SBC.
“Having fought through this for so many years, I couldn’t believe the callous inhumanity evidenced in this report. To see it – to see the very words used by leaders behind closed doors, the tactics being used against survivors and against whistleblowers, it was incredible. I mean, there was too much to even take in. After being told for decades that it would be impossible for the SBC to document predatory preachers so they would not be rehired in other churches, It was shocking to find that this document already existed. The existence and maintenance of a document was kept a secret, not to protect abuse victims but to protect themselves, the leaders, against claims of liability. I honestly don’t know what to call this other than a criminal conspiracy. It’s revolting. Crisis is much too small a word for what happened here. There was a constant stonewalling and intimidation of anyone who was pointing these things out and speaking to these things.
(Russell Moore, Christianity Today)
But it was the justification voiced behind closed doors that brings us back to this Luke passage. All of this was done, and over 4 million was spent, to protect the image of the denomination and especially the evangelistic efforts of the convention. The efforts in the minds of these men, the practices of destroying lives in order to ‘win souls’ was lauded as reason enough to keep secrets perpetuated this evil. Instead of holding onto God, and willingly being the hands and feet of the work God was already doing, they were holding onto their own agenda. They were holding onto a gross misunderstanding of their own mission, their calling. They were excusing this horror, justifying their own Satanic dark and shadowy evil, even as their grasp was slipping and their purpose was descending into fodder.
They were working out of fear, fear of what others would think of them, fear of hurting their man made efforts to increase salvations, baptisms, to have more people in the pews of a denomination that was already losing millions of members. They were hanging onto all kinds of fears, but they had lost grip of the call of God to be the hands and feet of the work God was doing – not the work they had devised.
They were hurting people instead of loving them.
The church has a monster problem, America has a monster problem, humankind has a monster problem. We have let go of being the hands and feet of the work he is doing, and, in doing so, we have let go of God. And, much like the Israelites during the days of Isaiah and Jeremiah’s prophecies, they have continued a false and deceitful presentation of holiness but one has only to look at what they are hanging onto, what we are hanging onto, to see that we have exchanged God for all types of other things.
Response – Benediction (6 slides)
Leader: As God spoke with the religious leaders, he made a very odd statement, a statement about hens and chicks.
Response: It was a statement about God and each of us.
Leader: “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”
Response: It was a call to us and our descendants.
Leader: It is a statement of what we pass on, what we teach the next generation through our lives and through our words.
Response: I long to gather your children but you were not willing to let me.
Leader: It is a desire of God to gather those who come after us, to free us of our monsters, our fears, our oppression, our hopelessness.
Response: It is a call to us to check what we are holding onto.
Leader: It is God’s desire that those who come after us will know what not to hold onto. What is strong enough to support.
Response: It is a call to hold onto God.
Leader: It is a calling to be hands and feet today, tomorrow, the next today, and all the following tomorrows.
Response: It is a calling to hang on until God’s work is complete.Response – Music 3 (7 slides)
Living Hope
CCLI Song # 7106807
Brian Johnson | Phil Wickham
Verse 1
How great the chasm that lay between us
How high the mountain I could not climb
In desperation I turned to heaven
And spoke Your name into the night
Then through the darkness Your loving-kindness
Tore through the shadows of my soul
The work is finished the end is written
Jesus Christ my living hope
Verse 2
Who could imagine so great a mercy
What heart could fathom such boundless grace
The God of ages stepped down from glory
To wear my sin and bear my shame
The cross has spoken I am forgiven
The King of kings calls me His own
Beautiful Savior I’m Yours forever
Jesus Christ my living hope
Chorus
Hallelujah praise the One who set me free
Hallelujah death has lost its grip on me
You have broken every chain
There’s salvation in Your name
Jesus Christ my living hope
Verse 3
Then came the morning that sealed the promise
Your buried body began to breathe
Out of the silence the Roaring Lion
Declared the grave has no claim on me
(REPEAT)
Jesus Yours is the victory
Jesus Christ my living hope
Oh God You are my living hope
Community (3 Slides)
- Next Sunday, June 5, “Passionate Persistence’, Luke 15:1-10
- Take It Easy Sunday, NO Worship Gathering June 12
- Pray Peace. Prayers for Ukraine – donation link at GFNorman.com
Peace (3 Slides)
Leader: As you leave this place, may the peace of the Lord, go with you.
Response: And also with you.
Leader: We gather here because of God’s love for us.
Response: We go from here because of God’s love for everyone out there.
Leader: Go in the peace of the Lord. Have a great week.
Order, Words, & Voices 