The Invisible Nails
Call to Worship - Response Text...Psalm 107:1-3+17,19-22
107:1 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.
107:2 Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, those he redeemed from trouble
107:3 and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.
107:17 Some were sick through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities endured affliction;
107:19 Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress;
107:20 he sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from destruction.
107:21 Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind.
107:22 And let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices, and tell of his deeds with songs of joy.
NRSV
Mission Moment AFC
Lord, God, you have given us a vision of who we are to be as your people. You have called us to share Christ with our country. You have called us to faithfully care for those in need. This is not something we can do on our own. The vision is to great. So we ask for your wisdom. We ask for your courage. We ask for your guidance as we rely on your ability to make the impossible possible. Bless and multiply our American for Christ gifts and use them to bring Christ to America. AMEN.
Litany - Our country hungers to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection. Lord, give us your vision. Our country is full of people who are hurting, helpless, homeless, or heartless. Lord, give us your vision. Our country is waiting for us, your church, to see the needs with your eyes. Lord, give us your vision. May we be your hands, your feet, your eyes in this land.Lord, let us live out your vision. May our America for Christ gifts make the difference. Lord, let us live out your vision. AMEN.
Prayer/Lord’s Prayer Father as we come before you this morning we pray that you would Forgive us, O God, // we respond to what we think of as mistreatment with anger or with vengeful thoughts and fantasies. Help us to return wrong with kindness. Help us, too, to be kind, that others may not need this prayer in dealing with us. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing # 45
Greetings/ Praise Songs
Prayer of Praise
We thank you for getting here long before we arrived, and for waiting for us. For whatever reason we have come, for whatever expectations we bring, take hold of our minds, hearts, wills....// help us to see our sin as the continuous falling short of our human existence, with respect to our highest possibilities. You have called us to live on dead center; we choose to live on the periphery. You have called us to live in the light; we choose to live in the darkness. we ask forgiveness for living on the periphery and in the darkness.
Father, you continue to invite us to live on center and in the light. We can do nothing about our response to the Good News up to this moment, except to allow the Spirit of God to forgive our past. Help us to be willing to do that!(One minute of silence.)//Jesus said, "Be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven." //Help us to believe that reality. that we may not only believe that truth intellectually, but that we would believe it with our whole heart, soul and mind! God, you promise us that we also can believe that emotionally. Help us, Lord, to trust you to the point of obeying you, and your promises, with our whole being, with our heart, mind, and will. Amen!
praises,
troops,
ill,
mourning,
new pastor
Special Music - Palmer Sisters, Soon and Very Soon
Scripture Reading - Numbers 21:4-9
Offertory - Stewardship Challenge
How do we keep our pocketbook in the darkness? Are we willing to expose it to the light of the Christ? If so, how will we do this?
Hymn # 204 All Glory, Laud and Honor
Gospel: John 3:14-21 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17 "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."
"The Invisible Nails"
Jesus’ greatest work wasn’t the work He did in His carpenter shop.//His greatest work wasn’t even when He performed great miracles of healing.//His greatest work was accomplished in just a few hours on Calvary when He died for our sins.////We know now that Jesus could have come down from the cross.//The nails driven into His hands and feet by the Roman soldiers couldn’t hold Him on the cross, but that day He chose the nails.
In fact, there were some invisible nails that kept Jesus on the cross.
The first of these invisible nails was the nail of love.
In the midst of a world filled with hatred and bitterness, God allowed His only Son to volunteer to be born.//God became flesh and He dwelt among us.//Although He lived and worked among us for 33 years of His life, His ultimate goal was Calvary for He said, “for this reason I was born…” (John 18:37).
The world has never again seen such a manifestation of selfless love that Jesus demonstrated for us at Calvary.//For at the cross, Jesus laid down His most basic right, the right to life itself!//It was the nail of love that held Jesus to the cross!
Jesus, carrying the burden of our sins upon Himself, went to the cross for us that God the Father would judge no condemnation upon us.
Somewhere there's an old sermon illustration about a man in an art museum. The man walks up to the Mona Lisa, stares at it, and finally mutters that he doesn't think it's such a great painting. A guard, overhearing this remark, steps over and says to the man: "Sir, it's not the painting which is judged here." that was a masterpiece, and the man who failed to see that told something about himself, not the painting. So it is with Jesus. When we behold him, his majesty is not open for discussion. It is ourselves about which we learn when we see Jesus.
Jesus came to the world as savior, not as judge. This raises some troublesome questions. What constitutes judgment? Obviously, if I accept Jesus as my savior, I still go on sinning. For goodness sakes, I catch myself at it all the time. Even as words came out, I know I have done something wrong. And then there's the brief, angry word to my dear one caused by frustration which, in turn, was caused by a rather routine character flaw in myself. As Paul said, that which I would not do I do. So, there is judgment of a sort or else there is no true moral spine to the universe. Acceptance of Jesus is not a license to get away with sinful conduct.
Back to that fellow in the Louvre, he was a certain kind of man. He judged himself. So with us. Yes, we'll go on sinning. Between our own self-policing and the forgiveness of God, there is hope for us as long as we allow the Spirit of Jesus (Holy Spirit) access to our inner being.
Jesus’love is a selfless love that should prompt us today to live for the One who died for us.
///The second invisible nail that kept Jesus on the cross was the nail of His loyalty.
All of His life, Jesus lived in the shadow of the cross, saying in fulfillment of divine purpose for His life, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14, 15) His loyalty to God the Father became His purpose in life, and Jesus accepted the cross because of that loyalty.
Today, we need to experience loyalty for Christ within our hearts.//That kind of loyalty would cause us to take a stand for Christ and for His Gospel.//Jesus Himself said, “If any one would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). / If we are to be loyal to Christ, we must be willing to accept how He would have us to live. // Remember, it was the invisible nail of loyalty that kept Jesus on the cross.
The third invisible nail that held Jesus to the cross was the nail of our sin.
Hundreds of years before Christ chose to become flesh, the Old Testament prophet Isaiah wrote, “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God…He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4, 5).
If Adam and Eve had never sinned, and you and I had never sinned, there would have been no need for the cross. // But sin entered our world and the cross was the symbol of man’s cross-purposes with God. //// It was the invisible nail of our sin that held Jesus to the cross. /// It was not only the sin of Adam and Eve, the sin of the Roman soldiers, but it was your sin and my sin, and the sin of every person who will ever live in the future that held Jesus to the cross.
Today, Calvary separates the entire world into two classes of people, the saved people and the lost people. The sole purpose of Christ’s life on earth was that He might die on the cross as the perfect Lamb of God in the shedding of His blood as a substitute in your place and in my place. You and I must accept Jesus’ death upon the cross as our substitute, for there is no other way.
There’s a popular book by Max Lucado entitled, "He Chose The Nails."
Yes, Jesus chose the metal nails of the Roman soldiers, but it was the invisible nails that held Him to the cross. ////The invisible nails of love. //// The invisible nails of loyalty.
And the invisible nails of our sin.////////////
Today we have a personal invitation from Jesus. That invitation is to join Him behind the veil in the Most Holy of Holies. For the Most Holy of Holies is the place where Jesus resides within your heart. Would you be so loyal to Christ that you take Him up upon His invitation? --pray-- Heavenly Father, if there is one here today hearing this sermon who has not yet come into a personal saving relationship with you, I pray this miracle of salvation be present in his or her heart and you, dear God, would take up residence in the holy temple of his or her heart. Amen./////
1. Eternal life brings initial joy. Some people experience this as a one-time, bursting experience of newness, like a conversion experience. William James used the example of a shed roof in a snowstorm. Snow builds up until the stress on the roof reaches the final point beyond which it will not remain intact. Then one flake of snow, almost imperceptible in and of itself, acts as the final weight and the roof collapses. So, in conversion, any life experience may be that last snowflake. Perhaps it's an illness, or a sunrise, or an inspiring worship experience, or an addiction which has finally become too much. Then the Holy Spirit breaks in.
For other people it may be more subtle, a slowly developing realization that Christ is real, that God does indeed work within us to heal and give life. Then in a moment of realization, one accepts Christ. Actually, I see these two extremes as ends of a continuum with each of us accepting Christ somewhere along that path.
2. Eternal life brings stability in life. It means that as we suffer and struggle, and as we laugh and feel good, we learn that in all things God is with us, empowering and loving us, never leaving us without the Spiritual presence.
Have you allowed the Spirit of God to expose your personal darkness to God's light in Christ? // If not, what serves as your barrier for doing so? // Or, have you allowed God's Spirit to penetrate you, your darkness that may look so suave and acceptable on the outside? // Belief is far more than mouthing the words, "I believe in God." Jesus says that "even the demons believe, and shudder." When did we last "shudder" over our belief? How do we expose our darkness to God's light, and to those whom we have offended?
May we share in Jesus’ invisible nails of love and invisible nails of loyalty.
What Wondrous Love Is This #212
Benediction