[0:00] Good morning! This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. There they go.
[0:15] This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
[0:32] This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
[0:44] This is the day that the Lord has made. Good morning! Welcome to our church.
[0:55] We have a gift for our visitors at the connection site. Please fill out your friendship card for any prayers or concerns or just so we can get to know you. It's fun to be part of the welcoming committee here at Hamilton Centre.
[1:10] Once we have located the clipboards, which we're going to have somebody go around and find the clipboards for us, we will be passing them and they are for food. There's one back. We're going to find those clipboards and they'll be passed for sign up for donating food for Niagara Falls.
[1:29] Niagara Falls dinners. Niagara Falls dinners and we serve all kinds of folks at those dinners. Lots and lots of people are blessed by your generosity. So please go for it. In addition, we have Tuesday going to be our family day at Texas Roadhouse Grill.
[1:43] There are details about that in your little good news. There are some coupons out on the table that you can grab, little flyers about that. You need those things to go and take advantage of this offer. But if you go on Tuesday with the coupon that you can either pick up here, you can download off the website.
[1:59] They're going to kick back to our children's ministries some of the proceeds from that. It's a fundraiser for our programs for our kids.
[2:10] And today, God bless us everyone, is Boy Scout Sunday. I love Boy Scout Sunday because it's just such a wonderful thing to be able to provide facilities for the Boy Scouts to be able to meet, to learn and grow into the kind of young men that we need, that we need in this country and in our world.
[2:29] And they're also going to be selling tickets today out in the fellowship hall, I think, for their Italian night dinner, which is this coming Saturday night. So we're going to be blessed by the presence of our scouts as they give back a little bit by participating and helping us to worship God.
[2:50] If you would stand as you're able. Oh, no, we need to pray first. Let's pray. We've got to pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day.
[3:03] We thank you for the opportunity to come and worship you. We thank you, Lord, that your Holy Spirit is always with us, that you never leave us nor forsake us.
[3:15] And we ask, Lord God, at this special time when we gather together to lift up your name and glorify you, that you would bless us in a special way. Bless our worship and make it to be a blessing to you.
[3:30] Holy Spirit, you are welcome here. Open our hearts. Change us. Transform us. Make us to be more like you.
[3:41] In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Amen. I'm coming. Come on. Go back. Attention. Go back.
[3:52] Hold on. Advance. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold. Hold on.
[4:03] Hold on. Hold on. Hold. Hold on. I'll go out to the top of the top of the top.
[4:15] Will you all please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Scouts, look at me.
[4:27] Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, and to be invisible, with liberty and justice for all.
[4:41] Scouts, I am the man that will do my best, to do my duty, to add my country, to obey the Scout laws, to help other people of all times, and to keep myself physically strong and to be motivated and motivated.
[4:57] Scout laws, a Scout is trustworthy, ployed, and a plushed, friendly, and curious, and obedient, and perfected, and great, and made you work. Color art, pulse the colors.
[5:20] Color art, pulse the colors. Scout, baby, see you. The Lord be with you.
[5:35] And also be with you. Would you greet one another with the peace of the spirit? Good morning, Godspeed. Good morning, Godspeed. Good morning, Godspeed.
[5:47] Good morning, Godspeed. Good morning, Godspeed. How are my children? I let youress.
[5:58] Good morning, I amBo the Virgin. The Lord only, not yet� or but who else, so we start to come up in the table. The Lord never kills us, no Crow程.
[6:10] Where are my children? Come, children! Come on along. Good morning. How are you today?
[6:26] Look, they're still coming. Come on. Keep coming. Yeah. Did you hear one of those things that those Boy Scouts said that they would do? They said that, what did they say?
[6:41] They would help. They did say that they would help. They said something about obeying the Scouts' rules. Did you know that Scouts have rules?
[6:54] No, some of you did and some of you didn't. I did, but I thought it was really neat that they promised to obey the rules. What other rules do you know about that there are that you have to obey? What else?
[7:06] No? Come on. I know you must know. Do you have rules in your house? Don't hurt anyone.
[7:17] That's a very important rule to obey, isn't it? What else? Be nice to people. Yeah. What other rules do you know about? Don't be bad. Yeah. Any other rules that you know about?
[7:31] Be safe. Oh, yeah. Do everything you can to be safe. What else? Don't fight. That's a really good rule. Right? Do you know of any other rules you should listen to?
[7:43] Go ahead, Kate. That's Kate. That's Kara. Go ahead, Kate. Do you know of a rule? You can't. Yeah.
[7:54] Yeah. That's right. You want to wear nice stuff in church, don't you, if you can, right? Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. We have all kinds of rules, don't we? And do you know what?
[8:06] God has rules, too. Did you know that? And the rules that God has for us, and even the rules, like the rules that the scouts have, and the what? Do you know what?
[8:19] What do you know about Jesus that's a rule? Don't worship a statue. That's a really, really important rule, isn't it?
[8:31] It sure is. What else? Any other ideas? Kara, do you have one? Be helpful. That's a good one, too. All of the rules that we have, you know, we have rules, the scouts have rules, and we have rules in our schools, rules, and God has rules for us, and we even have rules in our church, don't we?
[8:53] The reason that people have rules is because they want people to live together in a way where everybody can get along well, and in a way where everyone can always be safe.
[9:09] It's when we don't follow the rules that trouble happens, isn't it? So it's very, very important to know that God has rules for us in ways he wants us to be, and all the really good rules that there are for people are rules that are somehow based on those rules, right?
[9:28] Like be good, and don't hurt anybody, and honor God, and look out for one another, right? Take care of each other. All right, let's have a prayer and thank God for all the rules that he gives us that keep us safe.
[9:42] Do you have something to be thankful for this morning? Go ahead. My mom and dad. My friends and family. My mom and dad and my family. My sister.
[9:56] Mommy and daddy. My sisters. My brother. My dad.
[10:10] My mom. My son. My dad. My son. Okay, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you look out for us and take care of us in all things. We thank you that you've given us rules to live by so that we will know how to behave, how to love you, and how to treat each other with love.
[10:32] Help us to understand and be able to follow your rules. Help us to love you with all of our hearts and help us to be a blessing to everybody we meet.
[10:46] In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. You can head off to church school, I think, now, right? All righty. We have a scout that's going to be coming forward to do a thankful moment.
[11:12] And while he's coming up, come on up, I just want to tell you about our mission moment for this, for today, is Super Bowl Sunday. So Super, as in not the we're going to eat junk food later and try and stay up late enough to watch commercials and things and maybe some football, but Super Bowl, S-O-U-P, and that is to bring a highlight to the Pendleton Food Pantry.
[11:35] And the Pendleton Food Pantry is used throughout this community and they are running low on their food supplies. We all give a lot over the holidays, but now they're asking for us to support them.
[11:47] And so we take advantage of Super Bowl Sunday so that hopefully we can all reach in and grab all the stuff that we would like to give to help others who may need a little helping hand in supplying food for their families.
[12:00] And our thankful moment is... Morning. Morning. Morning. My name is Cameron Knipple and I wanted to share a few reasons why I love being in Scouts.
[12:14] The first reason is friendship. When you're in the Boy Scouts, you make all kinds of friends and you get relationships with adults and kids.
[12:27] Your age, you get to interact in community and it's just amazing the things that you see and do when you're in the Boy Scouts. Another reason is the camping.
[12:40] When you're camping, you see things that are way cooler than any video game that you will ever play. Thank you.
[12:50] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And it really makes you feel good every time you're, like, helping your community or something.
[13:07] You, you know, do something for people that aren't as fortunate as you and it puts a warm feeling in your heart. And I just wanted to say that and thank you.
[13:17] Thank you. Thank you. We thank God for the opportunity to have scouts in our church, for the opportunity to reach boys, and we are thankful for the many blessings that God has given us in every way.
[13:38] And let's return our gifts, tithes, and offerings to the Lord. Lord, we thank you for the many blessings in our lives and we give back to you a portion as a grateful, humble thank you.
[13:54] We pray that you will bless these offerings to be able to expand your kingdom. May your love flourish throughout this world through what we do with these gifts.
[14:05] Lord, may we be a blessing in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Take that out.
[14:16] Thanks, guys. So, joys are we have Boy Scouts here, and Boy Scouts are always a great joy. I thank them for being here. We also have another joy.
[14:27] Those of you who know, Bonnie Boudreau has been going through cancer treatments, and she has recently been declared cancer-free. So, whoo! Amen. We do have many concerns within our church family.
[14:45] The ones that I'm aware of, Mike Clifford is recovering from surgery from his neck, and Eric Knudela is recovering from surgery on his knee.
[14:56] Amy Yurden had a stroke, and she's about 40 years old, and he has two small children at home. So, please pray for Amy, and please pray for the Hasley family.
[15:08] They just put Randy's mom into hospice this week, and for those of us who have ever gone through that, you know just how difficult that is. And there's a lot more, I know, that's going on, so let's come to the Lord in prayer.
[15:25] Most gracious and loving Lord, we thank you for your mercies. We thank you for your comfort and your peace, and we pray that your presence will fill us.
[15:37] Help us to know that you're there when we're feeling lost, and help us to know and trust that your healing will happen, and that you are in control.
[15:49] We pray, Lord, that you will continue to bless our families, and this church, and this community. Help us to open up our eyes to be able to see the many blessings in our lives, break down the barriers that block us from seeing just how good you are, and just how blessed we are.
[16:13] I pray that your presence will reach through our hardened hearts, breaking free from the things that bind us, that we may be a greater vessel for you, and we pray, Lord, for your comforting touch, your healing to come upon us.
[16:34] We pray for Mike, Eric, Amy, for the Hasley family. We pray for the families who are going through so many struggles, whether it be financial or relationship issues.
[16:51] Many people are struggling, Lord, and they need to feel your presence, and we trust that you will be there and surround them with your healing power. Give them faith to lean back and trust you, and to know that you are there with them.
[17:07] We pray for our church. May we be filled with your wisdom and guidance to do the right thing in this world. We pray for our community.
[17:24] Hearts and minds will be open to you. Lives changed. And we pray for our world that is so broken. May your glory come upon this nation and this world.
[17:41] Help us to know what to do, Lord. And we pray for you to step in, and we trust in you. Lord, we thank you for your goodness, your mercy, and your love.
[17:56] Lord, hear us as we lift up the people on our hearts, the struggles that we haven't mentioned.
[18:08] Amen. We thank you, Lord, for your peace, your presence, your grace, and your mercy.
[18:36] Amen. Amen. Let us hear the word of the Lord. Amen. Good morning.
[19:13] Good morning. Today's reading is from Romans chapter 3, verses 21 through 28. But now, a righteousness from God, apart from law, has made known to which the law and the prophets testify.
[19:29] This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and ought and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ.
[19:46] God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice because in his forbearance, he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished.
[20:00] He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Where, then, is boasting?
[20:13] It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.
[20:27] This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Wyatt. I have a question for you, church.
[20:42] God. We worship God. Yeah? Okay, good. Well, who is this God that we worship the God of?
[20:55] Okay. I mean, what people in the world are people that God loves and that God wants to become righteous?
[21:08] Everybody? Okay. How do you know that? Yeah?
[21:19] Pretty much this is what we teach in the church, right? Yeah. And it can be summed up in a verse from 2 Peter where Peter writes, God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
[21:36] I think it's clear in this verse of scripture that any implies that all people need to repent and that all people are qualified to repent.
[21:53] the first part of that verse that I read from 2 Peter tells us that God waits patiently for us to come.
[22:07] God waits patiently for us to repent. But okay, so we've got a verse in the Bible. Why do we believe that?
[22:19] In our current series on basic Christian theology, we are studying Paul's letter to the Roman church. Last week, Pastor Tom spoke about how no one can be in a right relationship with God and remember we use the word righteousness to describe that state of being when we are in right relationship with God, right?
[22:46] Well, no one can be in a right relationship with God because sin is in the way of that kind of relationship and everyone is a sinner.
[23:03] People can't get out of sin by themselves. They need God. We need God to provide a way. And at the point in the letter where we pick up today, Paul is explaining that there is more involved in becoming forgiven by God and saved from sin than following the laws, the rules that God provided for Israel.
[23:31] This is because no human being could possibly, completely, do absolutely everything in God's law perfectly.
[23:43] God and all his faithful Jewish friends spent their lives trying to keep that law, but God revealed to Paul that his human effort in keeping the law was not going to do it.
[24:00] Now God has revealed something to Paul in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that he wants people to know about because God in Jesus Christ had made a new way for people to be forgiven of their sins so they can be righteous with God.
[24:26] God has made the way to repair the broken relationship between God and people. It's funny though.
[24:39] If you read what it says in here, the new way that God made is really a very, very ancient way. It goes all the way back to a man named Abraham who the people, who were the Jewish people regarded as the father of their faith.
[24:59] And the key to God's way is just that. Faith. It is faith, as we heard in today's reading, that justifies it before God.
[25:11] Faith that makes us righteous. And the spiritual truth that faith makes people right with God rather than following the law by human effort is shown in the timing, in the whole story of the human relationship with God that's told in our Bibles.
[25:36] About Abraham and faith, Paul writes in Romans chapter 4, what then, I know it's there, there it is, what then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter?
[25:49] If in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God. what does the scripture say?
[26:01] Paul asks the people. And he quotes from Genesis chapter 15 as he says, Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.
[26:15] Abraham was right with God. He was a righteous man because of his faith and he was called righteous at a time long before God had given the law to Israel.
[26:33] In fact, Abraham was called a righteous man long, long before Israel even existed.
[26:45] You remember the story if you've read it. Abraham and he has his son, Isaac and his son, Jacob after him and Jacob is the one who ultimately becomes called Israel and Israel has 12 sons, 12 sons, each of whom becomes the father of a whole bunch of people who become the nation of Israel and that nation of Israel gets transported into Egypt because of a famine.
[27:21] And in Egypt, they become slaves and God sets them free under the leadership of Moses and ultimately God gives them the law to follow through Moses so that they will know how to act and what to do and how to treat each other, right?
[27:41] You remember that story. long before the law had been given, God had promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations and that he would have a son long after he and his wife Sarah could possibly by human means have had a baby.
[28:07] Even though Abraham couldn't see how such things could be possible, he still believed the promise. And Paul tells us about Abraham, yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what God had promised.
[28:33] This is why it was credited to him as righteousness. So without having a law to follow, Abraham, just by believing that God would do what God had promised, was declared by God to be a righteous person.
[28:53] In Romans chapter 4 verses 23 through 25, Paul asserts that people can become righteous in God's eyes apart from observing the law because the words it was credited to him were not written for him, for Abraham alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness, for us who believe in him who raised our Lord Jesus from the dead.
[29:22] He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. Wow.
[29:35] You know, this understanding became very important to a woman named Lydia. Lydia had become a friend of Paul's when he met her one day by a river outside of Philippi.
[29:49] Here's her story as told in the book of Acts. On the Sabbath, we went outside the city gate to the river where we expected to find a place of prayer.
[30:01] We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God.
[30:18] The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to come to her home.
[30:29] If you consider me a believer in the Lord, she said, come and stay at my house. And she persuaded us. Now, we don't know too much about this woman Lydia.
[30:45] She was from Thyatira, which was a city in what is now Turkey. Thyatira was a center of trade. And among the different kinds of trade that were done in Thyatira, they were especially known for their trading in expensive, rare dyes, and cloth.
[31:07] Purple cloth. Different shades of blues and deep reds. Beautiful cloth. And Lydia had become a successful merchant there, dealing in those dyes and fabrics.
[31:26] It was the kind of cloth that was used for the garments for kings and emperors.
[31:41] Wealthy and powerful people could afford clothing made of such fabrics. In the church, purple is also a symbolic color.
[31:59] Today we have green cloth dressing up our lectern, dressing up our communion table. But during times of the year when we're drawing special attention to something about Jesus' life, like during Advent, when we're looking forward to Christmas, the coming of Christ, or Lent, when we're looking forward to remembering the crucifixion and resurrection, we dress our church in purple because we know Jesus is our king.
[32:35] He's our Lord. And we honor him with purple. The soldiers who were mocking Jesus at his crucifixion, remember what they dressed him in?
[32:49] A crown made of thorns and a purple robe because he had been accused of claiming to be a king.
[33:02] Lydia must have been a very successful woman. She must have had substantial means if she was able to maintain a household in Philippi so far away from her business source in Thyatira.
[33:20] And she did travel back and forth. I think she must have come to a point in her life where she realized that the pagan religious practices of her hometown were somehow just not connecting her with God.
[33:37] The scripture tells us that she was a God worshiper. Now, if we just look at those words, that might mean to us anything. There were gods all over the place. So people regarded all kinds of different things and forces in nature as gods.
[33:53] Right? But the word that's used here that we translate to mean God worshiper meant someone very special. It means that she had connected with some devout Jewish people and learned about the God that they worship, the one true God creator of all.
[34:18] And she was learning to follow God as a Jewish woman. She probably hadn't come to the point where she had actually converted to Judaism yet, but she was working on it.
[34:33] That meant that she had to learn to obey God's laws, and she was hoping to become justified by doing the works that the law required. When she met Paul and his missionary companions, the scripture says that God opened her heart to respond to Paul's message of justification by faith.
[34:57] She learned that there was nothing she herself could do to be made righteous before God. She had to rely on God's grace and to have faith that Jesus had died to pay the penalty for her sin.
[35:12] And Jesus had overcome the sentence of death that sin deserves by his resurrection to eternal life. You know, God is not merely a merciful God who forgives our sins like they don't really matter.
[35:32] God sometimes people regard God that way, especially in our culture. Wonderful, merciful Savior. He's our God. He loves us.
[35:43] He does anything for us. I can pray for anything I want. God will grant it to me just because he's my friend. And God is our friend. And God is merciful and God is wonderful and loves us with an everlasting love.
[35:57] love. But we can't just go to God and ask for forgiveness and God just kind of takes the attitude like, oh, yeah, fine, good, whatever, it's okay.
[36:10] No harm done, no big deal. Sin is never okay. Sin is never okay.
[36:23] for God to be simply merciful would just not be right. It wouldn't be just. Our God is a God of justice as well as mercy.
[36:38] Forgiveness and justification because of what Jesus did on the cross shows both mercy and justice. Justice because the punishment for sin was taken care of for all of us.
[37:02] Mercy because it was God who was the one who did it for us. God in Jesus Christ who did the one thing that we could not do for ourselves.
[37:19] As a woman of Jewish belief under the law, Lydia would have been trying to do something to earn righteousness. And I think she would have done her best, don't you? I mean, she was a very successful businesswoman in a world where business was dominated by men, in a world where she probably had to fight for everything she had and for the right to become the successful merchant that she was.
[37:47] The type person who probably would have done a really good job and been very diligent about living according to the requirements of the law. But like us, she would never have been perfect.
[38:04] And by God's grace, she recognized that she needed to have faith in Jesus. I remember when I recognized that very thing in my own life.
[38:15] as a young adult, late teens and getting into my early 20s, I saw so many injustices in the world, especially in the government, and it made me mad.
[38:27] Does it make you mad? I wanted so badly to become part of the solution to those problems, and I was getting involved.
[38:40] And one day, God spoke to me, and he said that there was nothing I could do. He said there was nothing I could do to truly change anything for good.
[39:00] Unless I was on his team. Unless I started following the leading of the Holy Spirit and discovering what God wanted me to do and how God wanted me to do it, and then there would be a way for change to come.
[39:26] On that day, I truly believed God. I accepted by faith all that Jesus had done for me so that I could be free from my sin, and I allowed God to change my life so that I would be able to do good, not by my own power, but by God's empowerment for God, not for me.
[39:49] And everything in my life changed. You know, I have trouble believing things just because somebody told me to believe them. Anybody like that in here? There's a lot of people out in the world, and a lot of people in the church, too, who believe whatever they hear.
[40:07] they listen to this news station or that news station or this commentator or that guy down the street, and they hear something that seems to be right to them, and they just, without doing any kind of thinking for themselves, just go off and start spouting out what somebody else has said about how they should think.
[40:32] But I have never been able to be like that. I don't know why. I cannot believe something just because somebody tells me. When I was finishing my undergrad degree, my natural sciences professor, he was kind of funny.
[40:47] One day he looked at me as we were discussing something, and he said, why in the world would you want to be a pastor? He said, what makes you think that you would be a good pastor?
[41:01] You don't think like a theologian. You think like a scientist. And I guess in some ways that's true. I have to see proof of something.
[41:15] I have to feel it. I have to know it. By having experienced it and by seeing it come to pass. I'm like the Berean believers, kind of, who are described in the book of Acts.
[41:31] these people who are faithful followers of Jesus Christ, Paul writes, received the message with great eagerness and examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
[41:48] They didn't believe him just because he was Paul. They went back to the scriptures he was preaching from and searched and learned. but I don't believe this book either.
[42:05] Oh, it got real quiet in here. I don't believe this book simply based on the words that happen to be written on the page that I can read.
[42:19] I believe what this book says because I know the one who inspired every single word written in here. I believe in this book because I believe in the one who saw to it that this book would be assembled exactly as we needed it so that we could know God better.
[42:43] I believe that I can learn from this book all about God because I believe in the one. I believe in the God who motivated and empowered the actions of every single man, woman, and child whose stories are in this book who acted according to faith and were righteous.
[43:09] Because I know God through accepting Jesus Christ into my life as my Savior and Lord, the only Savior and Lord that they could ever possibly be, and by following the leading of the Holy Spirit in my life, I let Jesus be not only my Savior but my Lord.
[43:30] When God revealed himself to me in Jesus Christ, I knew I had to drop the plans I had for my life and surrender to God's plan for me.
[43:44] I believe that I am in right relationship with God, not because of anything I can do for myself but because of how God chooses to honor faith.
[44:00] And when I read this book, I believe God is teaching me more each day about what it means to fulfill God's law by loving God with all my heart, you know the rest, soul, mind, and strength and by loving my neighbor as myself.
[44:25] Paul taught this message of justification by faith everywhere he went. We hear it again in a letter to a minister friend of his called Titus. He writes, we were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, and slaves to our desires and various pleasures too.
[44:46] we were spending our lives in evil behavior and jealousy. We were disgusting and we hated other people.
[44:58] But when God, our Savior's kindness and love appeared, he saved us because of his mercy, not because of righteous things we had done. He did it through the washing of new birth and the renewing by the Holy Spirit, which God poured out upon us generously through Jesus Christ, our Savior.
[45:19] So since we have been made righteous by his grace, we can inherit the hope of eternal life. Do you have the hope of eternal life today?
[45:31] Okay? If you don't, have the assurance down in the depths of your soul that you are right with God, all you have to do is confess your sin and ask God to forgive you.
[45:59] Then you ask Jesus to come into your heart, to come into your life and be your Lord and Savior. the Holy Spirit would lead you and guide you in all you do and God will answer you and God's answer will be yes!
[46:17] Yes! Those of us who know in the depths of our being that our faith has been credited to us as righteousness, we need to confess as well.
[46:31] Amen? Because none of us is yet at a place where we do this Christian discipleship thing perfectly. So let's pray together.
[46:43] And after we've prayed, we're going to sing praise to God for all God has done for us in Jesus and for sending the Holy Spirit to comfort us and guide us through each day of our lives so we can be a blessing.
[46:58] Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I have sinned. I have not loved you with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength and I have not loved my neighbor as myself.
[47:23] I have tried to do everything for myself. I have tried to save myself.
[47:36] I have done things just to bring glory to me. Forgive me, Lord. Help me, Lord.
[47:50] Teach me, Lord. Teach me, Lord. Let's take a moment and lift up silently in our hearts, those things that God reveals to us that need to be carried away and lifted off of us.
[48:05] God, I'm sorry.
[48:27] God, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And I ask you to come into my heart. and make me more like you. In Jesus' name I pray.
[48:41] Amen. You need Jesus until today. And now you know you've been justified by faith, by faith in God and all that God has promised us.
[48:56] Or even if you've been in church your whole life and you've known him and drawn on his power and walked in the path that he's called you to. If you have questions about your faith, if you feel like you need to know more, if you feel like you need to go deeper, and we all do, ask somebody.
[49:26] Anybody you've seen ministering up here this morning, any of our folks who are CLMs, any of the folks who lead Bible studies and stuff, get with them.
[49:41] Ask them. I'm not promising we're going to have all the answers, but we can at least point you in a good direction and we can pray with you. You can start yourself, too, by praying every day.
[49:55] if you're not praying every day, you need to be. God will speak to you. God will reveal all that God has for you and all that God wants for you.
[50:08] Start by reading this book because you know the one who gave it to us. A gospel, that's a great place to start because the gospels are all about Jesus, who he was, who he is, what he did, what he's doing.
[50:27] Mark is the shortest one. You can start there. It's okay. Or you want to really jump in with both feet and just dive in. There's the Bible challenge.
[50:39] You can pick up sheets about that out there or you can get it off the website. Join us in studying the Bible and find a Christian friend to walk with.
[50:50] find a Christian friend to share your stuff with. I promise you, you will not get good godly answers by checking out Dr. Oz or Oprah.
[51:03] They don't have it. The world will pull us off course. Find a Christian friend to share with, to walk with.
[51:17] Christians do these kinds of things to move forward in our faith and that's what we have to be doing. As we move forward in our faith, we're able to go out and help point other people to Jesus too.
[51:28] God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. We want to be someone who points to righteousness.
[51:43] We're going to come to the table now and boy, you can receive from God in a very special way when you come to the table. God is in the bread. God is in the juice.
[51:54] And everyone is welcome. If you love God, earnestly repent of your sin and seek to live in peace with one another as disciples of Jesus Christ. You are welcome to come and receive from him.
[52:07] You don't have to be a member of the United Methodist Church, this church, or any other church. You just have to come seeking God. God, you are welcome at the table this morning.
[52:23] The Lord be with you. And also with you. Lift up your hearts. We live not to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give our thanks and grace.
[52:33] It is right and a good and joyful thing always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. You formed us in your image and breathed into us the breath of life.
[52:47] When we turned away and our love failed, your love remained steadfast. You delivered us from captivity and made covenant to be our sovereign God and spoke to us through your prophets.
[53:02] And so with your people on earth and all the company of heaven, we praise your name and join their unending hymn, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory.
[53:16] Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. Holy are you and blessed is your son, Jesus Christ.
[53:28] Your spirit anointed him to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed and to announce that the time had come when you would save your people.
[53:46] He healed the sick, fed the hungry, and ate with sinners. By the baptism of his suffering, death, and resurrection, you gave birth to your church, delivered us from slavery to sin and death, and made with us a new covenant by water and the spirit.
[54:07] When the Lord Jesus ascended, he promised to be with us always in the power of your word and Holy Spirit. On the night in which he gave himself up for us, he took the bread, and he gave thanks to you, Father Almighty, and he broke the bread, and he said, this is my body, which is broken for you.
[54:30] Eat of this, remembering me. And when the supper was over, he took the cup, and he gave thanks to God, and he said, drink from this, all of you.
[54:46] This is the cup of the new covenant, the cup of my blood poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.
[55:00] Drink of this often in remembrance of me. And so in remembrance of these, your mighty acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice in union with Christ's offering for us as we proclaim the mystery of faith.
[55:19] Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and the blood of Christ.
[55:34] That we may be for the whole world the body of Christ, redeemed by this blood. By your Spirit, make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to the whole world until Christ comes in his final victory, and we feast at his heavenly banquet.
[55:53] Through your Son, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit in your holy church, all honor and glory is yours, almighty Father, now and forever. Amen.
[56:05] Please join with me the prayer that Jesus taught us 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.
[56:19] Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
[56:32] For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Following our closing prayer, our scouts are going to play us out, so hang in there for just a minute and let them process.
[56:46] Haven't they been a blessing this morning to worship with us? We are grateful. We are grateful for your service in the community and your service to this church, and you are welcome in this place with us.
[57:02] Father God, we just thank you so much for this time that we have had to gather together. We pray and bless you. We ask that you would continue to be a blessing to us, not so that we can consume it on ourselves, but so that we can be a blessing wherever we go.
[57:17] Draw us nearer to yourself, Lord. And I pray for everyone as you go. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you.
[57:29] May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and grant you love and joy and peace. Amen. Amen. Here we're going.
[58:03] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[58:15] Amen. Thank you.