Service Sunday April 28, 2024
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All are Welcome!
Watch a video recording of the whole service using Youtube below.
The Gathering
Welcome and Announcements.
Focusing Moment.
Acknowledgement of Land
Since time immemorial, Indigenous peoples have occupied and cared for this land, the country we call Canada, from coast to coast to coast. In naming this land mass, even more specifically Haliburton Highlands, and environs, we acknowledge this place as the Traditional home of the Anishinaabe peoples. As a community of faith, we seek to rebuild right relations with the First Nations, Metis, and Inuit peoples, to learn from and with each other, and to live on the land with respect and gratitude for its creation and Creator. This is our commitment. Amen.
Written by Bill Perry, Consecon P.C., Carying Place, Ont.
Gathering, Lent-Easter 2024, p.30. Used with permission.
Call to Worship:
One: When we are seeking,
All: God points out the path.
One: When others are searching,
All: God points out the path.
One: Our lives are often signposts:
All: people together on the Way.
One: Our words are waypoints:
All: people together on the Way.
One: Where Christ’s story and our stories meet:
All: people together on the Way.
One: Let us walk, roll, run, dance, hop and live!
All: People—together on the Way!
Written by Richard Bott, Grace U.C., Burlington, Ont.
Gathering, Lent-Easter 2024, p.42. Used with permission.
HYMN: “Joyful, Joyful We Adore You” VU #232
1 Joyful, joyful we adore you, God of glory, life and love;
hearts unfold like flowers before you, opening to the sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness, drive the gloom of doubt away;
giver of immortal gladness, fill us with the light of day.
2 All your works with joy surround you, earth and heaven reflect your rays,
stars and angels sing around you, centre of unbroken praise.
Field and forest, vale and mountain, flowery meadow, flashing sea,
chanting bird and flowing fountain, sound their praise eternally.
3 You are giving and forgiving, ever blessing, ever blest,
wellspring of the joy of living, ocean depth of happy rest!
Source of grace and fount of blessing, let your light upon us shine;
teach us how to love each other, lift us to the joy divine.
4 Mortals join the mighty chorus which the morning stars began;
God's own love is reigning o'er us, joining people hand in hand.
Ever singing, march we onward, victors in the midst of strife;
joyful music leads us sunward in the triumph song of life.
A SONG OF FAITH: In Unison
God is creative and self-giving,
generously moving
in all the near and distant corners of the universe.
Nothing exists that does not find its source in God.
Our first response to God’s providence is gratitude.
We sing thanksgiving.
Finding ourselves in a world of beauty and mystery,
of living things, diverse and interdependent,
of complex patterns of growth and evolution,
of subatomic particles and cosmic swirls,
we sing of God the Creator,
the Maker and Source of all that is.
MINISTRY OF MUSIC TIME FOR THE YOUTHFUL
HYMN: “Like A Healing Stream” MV #144
1. Like a healing stream in a barren desert,
Spirit water bringing life to dusty earth,
God is trickling through our lives
as in a dream unfolding,
promising revival and rebirth
like a healing stream
2. Like a gentle rain on a thirsty garden,
Spirit water come to nourish tiny seed,
God is bubbling through the soil
to coax a new creation
yearning for an end to want and need
like a gentle rain.
3. Like a river strong with a restless current,
Spirit water rushing on to distant shore,
God is carving out a channel
in a new direction,
calling for an end to hate and war
like a river strong.
4. Like a mighty sea reaching far horizons,
Spirit water with a love both deep and wide,
God is working in our hearts
to shape a new tomorrow:
God will always challenge and provide!
Like a mighty sea, like a river strong,
like a gentle rain, like a healing stream.
THE WORD
Scripture: 1 John 4:7-21 & Acts 8:26-40
Leader: Hear and listen to what the Spirit is saying to the church.
ALL: Thanks be to God.
MESSAGE
“Love, When the Spirit Says, ‘Love’”
Listen to an audio recording of the message below or read the message at the bottom of this page.
OUR RESPONSE PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE and THE LORD’S PRAYER: sung VU #960
New HYMN Review: “I Am a Child of God” MV #157
1. I am a child of God,
I am a glimpse of God’s new creation.
I am a child of God,
I am a child of God.
2. I am an endless prayer,
I am a yearning for contemplation,
I am an endless prayer,
I am an endless prayer.
3. I am an angry voice,
I am compassion and consternation,
I am an angry voice,
I am an angry voice.
4. I am a cry for peace,
I am commitment and dedication,
I am a cry for peace,
I am a cry for peace.
5. I am a song of joy,
I am the moment of jubilation,
I am a song of joy,
I am a song of joy.
PRESENTATION OF OUR OFFERINGS
Offertory Prayer (In Unison)
O Jesus, we are the branches, you are the vine. Abide in us that our lives may produce fruit as your faithful disciples. May the offerings we bring this day bring your goodness and love to the world, so that God will be glorified. In your holy name we pray. Amen.
Written by Taylor Croissant, Southminster U.C., Lethbridge, Alta.
Gathering, Lent-Easter 2024, p.48. Used with permission.
SUNG BLESSING: VU# 651 vs 1
1 Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,
pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but thou art mighty,
hold me with thy powerful hand.
Bread of heaven, bread of heaven,
feed me till I want no more,
feed me till I want no more. ©
Sending Forth: In Unison
One: Go as God’s beloved people, abiding in God’s love, like the branch abides in the vine. May you feel the oneness of this connection, and may you leave here knowing that this connection to the Divine makes the difference. It makes all the difference.
ALL: Amen!
Written by Sheryl Spencer, Mount Forest P.C., Mount Forest, Ont.
Gathering, Lent-Easter 2024, p.49. Used with permission.
A Time of Fellowship
© Music Reproduced with permission under License number A-605748, Valid for: 26/10/2023 - 25/10/2024; One License - Copyright Cleared Music for Churches.
Sermon 28 April 2024
“Love, When the Spirit Says, ‘Love’”
1 John 4:7-21 & Acts 8:26-40
Gracious God, be with us today in this place, in the Scriptures and in our words.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts praise your Holy name. Amen.
The Man in today’s scripture lesson from Acts was an Ethiopian Eunuch!
And the fact that Philip baptized him into the church was grounds for much discussion.
Now, you or I might notice first that this man had dark skin, but to Philip, or any other Jew of his day, the problem was that he was a eunuch.
The Laws of Moses were clear about such people.
Look it up for yourself in Deuteronomy 23:1.
He could not be a part of God’s people.
Yet this eunuch sought to worship God.
He was a God fearing Gentile.
In fact he was on his way back from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem where he would have worshipped in the outermost part of the temple, the court of the Gentiles.
He was also reading and studying the prophets.
As if being a eunuch was not enough, he was also a Gentile.
Up to this point all the converts to Christianity had been Jews first.
Consider the precedent that was being set here.
If you let in this Ethiopian, next you have to let in Medes and Persians and Greeks.
Where will it all end?
I mean, you wouldn’t want to sit next to Gentiles in church, would you?
Even Samaritans will be joining the church!
Before long there will be more Gentiles than Jews in Jesus’ church!
They’ll have to move church headquarters from Jerusalem to Greece or Rome or even Toronto or who knows where.
But this Ethiopian Eunuch was a man thirsting for God.
To not baptize him would be like... like... like denying water to one dying of thirst.
Anyway, it was God who led Philip to this place.
It was the Holy Spirit that told him to run up to the Chariot.
Now understand he couldn’t just walk up to this chariot.
He had to run up to a moving chariot to talk to this man.
So Philip did as God told him to and he explained the Scriptures to the Ethiopian.
He offered a spiritually thirsty man the water of life.
Philip told him about Jesus.
And that Eunuch accepted Christ and was baptized.
Philip accepted and loved a man that others would have rejected, and he did it just because the Spirit told him to.
One of the defining characteristics of a Christian is love.
A true Christian accepts others as they are, because that is how we came to Christ.
Each of us comes to Christ with nothing.
No wealth, no prestige, no beauty, no love.
Because any earthly wealth, prestige, beauty or affection that we have is nothing next to Christ.
But Christ accepts us and makes us fellow heirs with him in God’s kingdom.
So Christians should accept others with the same kind of love God shows us.
Paul says without love all our works are nothing.(1 Cor. 13:1-3)
John writes, “Beloved, love one another for love is of God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”(4:7)
“God is love” and if God dwells in us our actions are motivated by that love.
If we are motivated by anything other than love, then God is not in us.
Love is so important to being a child of God, but too often we fail to love.
We ought to love and accept people who are different from us.
People with strange clothes, people who don’t dress well enough or who dress too well, Black people, brown people, red people, yellow people and even those who we are not sure what color they are.
We ought to love them and accept them.
We should even love bothersome preachers who step on our toes.
There is a spiritual hymn that has a line in it that says: “I’m gonna sing when the Spirit says sing.”
We ought to love when the Spirit says love.
That’s exactly what Philip did.
When the Spirit said, “run up to that chariot and reach out to that Eunuch with God’s love,” Philip did it.
He didn’t worry about what people would think when they saw him running up to that chariot.
And when the Ethiopian Eunuch asked to be baptized, Philip didn’t worry about what the others in Jerusalem would say.
Like Philip, we should let love rule our lives too.
If you say “I love God” and you don’t love your neighbor, you’re a liar.(1 John 4:20)
I didn’t make that up.
It’s in the Bible; in our first scripture lesson.
If you can’t love your neighbor whom you can see, how can you love God whom you can’t see?(1 John 4:20)
If you have given your life to Christ, then God lives in you and God is love.(1 John 4:15- 16)
Let that love motivate your actions.
When God’s Spirit says, “Love that unwanted unrighteous person who you judge to be the wrong color or from the wrong side of the tracks or from the wrong family,” then love them.
Don’t worry about what your friends will say if they see you with them.
What they say doesn’t matter anyway.
You should be concerned about what God will say.
Show them God’s love with your actions and tell them of God’s love with your words.
And don’t be afraid to introduce them to your friends; especially Jesus.
And don’t be afraid to bring them to church and introduce them to God’s people no matter who they are.
We might end up with a church full of Samaritans and Persians and even a few Ethiopian Eunuchs, but we’ll be sharing God’s love and that is always wonderful.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
