Sermon Tone Analysis

*Prayer of Preparation *

May the love of God protect you, the grace of Christ walk with you and the power of the Spirit grant you all good gifts for the living of these days.

\\ *Prelude*

*Introit*

*Welcome, Announcements, Joys and Concerns*

~**Hymn            *                        "We Gather Together"              # 540

*The Call to  Worship*

Leader:  Now is the time to live: to come to the God who creates us, to sing to the Redeemer who frees us.

People:  Now is the time to come alive, to invite the whole world to join in praising God.

\\ Leader:  Yes, now is the time to invite the sky to thunder God's word, the earth to rumble in praise.

\\ All:  We invite all to celebrate with us, to glorify God's name, to dance with God's spirit, which fills us.

\\ -- Crystal Sygeel-Lystlund, Good Shepherd United Methodist Church, Richmond, VA

 

~**The Invocation  *Psalm 16:7 -- Let us "bless the Lord who gives us counsel"

*The Lord's Prayer *(use “sins”)            O merciful and loving God, we wait for that day when Christ will return to call the Church home into eternity.

Help us to be faithful~/ and true servants and stewards until that day comes.

Our Father, who 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 sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.

And, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever.

AMEN.

*~*Gloria Patri*

*The Young Peoples Moment*

Hold up a brick and a Bible, and ask the children to tell you which one will last longer.

Point out that they might be tempted to vote for the brick, since it is much harder and tougher-looking than a Bible with flimsy paper pages.

But then make the point that the Bible will last much longer, because it is full of words such as the ones Jesus spoke in Jerusalem, “Do you see these great buildings?

Not one stone will be left here upon another” (Mark 13:2).

Let the children know that the words of Jesus are still strong today after 2,000 years, but the stones and bricks of the buildings in Jerusalem are mostly broken and replaced by other building materials.

Encourage the children to put their trust more in the Bible than in a brick, because the Bible contains words that last forever.

Pull out a verse such as the advice of Jesus, “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed” (v.

7), and tell them that Jesus will be with them no matter what happens in the world around them.

Let them know that these words are as solid today as they were when Jesus spoke them.

Close by letting the children know that Jesus is always watching over them loving them, and giving them good advice, so they should vote for the Bible over a brick any day of the week.

*Call to Prayer*

Look upon sin with compassion, and you shall see mercy.

Look upon oppression with compassion, and you shall see justice.

Look upon time with love, and you shall enter eternity.

Look upon space with love, and you shall enter glory.

*Prayer Hymn*  “Count Your Blessings”  v.3                              #539

*Pastoral Prayer*

God of glory, make us deeply sensitive to the shortness of our existence here on earth, and to the fact that we must give an account before you.

May this truth not fill our hearts with fear, but with a resolve to use all our strength in service of you.

Lord, we have so often shortchanged ourselves and those around us, because we were unwilling to receive Your blessings and share them with others.

Too often we have looked at Your blessings as though we felt we deserved  to keep them for ourselves and not as though You intended for us to pass them on.

Forgive us, Lord.

Call us anew to carry Your Good News into the world.

Fill our hearts with Your compassion as we reach out to those around us and minister to their needs.

*Prayer Response*                                                                   choir

*Offertory Sentence *(Deu 15:11 NLT) "There will always be some among you who are poor.

That is why I am commanding you to share your resources freely with the poor and with others in need."

*Offertory*        “Beautiful Savior”                                             choir

*Doxology*

*The Offertory Prayer  *

O God, our Lord, we have barely begun to take up the cross of him who had no place to lay his head.

Allow these offerings we bring to be a token of our growth toward true discipleship.

In Jesus' name , AMEN.

 

*~*Hymn*:  “Years I Spent In Vanity and Pride”                           #297

*Scripture Text*                                    Mark 13: 1-8 NLT  "As Jesus was leaving the Temple that day, one of his disciples said, "Teacher, look at these tremendous buildings!

Look at the massive stones in the walls!" {2} Jesus replied, "These magnificent buildings will be so completely demolished that not one stone will be left on top of another."

{3} Later, Jesus sat on the slopes of the Mount of Olives across the valley from the Temple.

Peter, James, John, and Andrew came to him privately and asked him, {4} "When will all this take place?

And will there be any sign ahead of time to show us when all this will be fulfilled?"

{5} Jesus replied, "Don't let anyone mislead you, {6} because many will come in my name, claiming to be the Messiah.

They will lead many astray.

{7} And wars will break out near and far, but don't panic.

Yes, these things must come, but the end won't follow immediately.

{8} Nations and kingdoms will proclaim war against each other, and there will be earthquakes in many parts of the world, and famines.

But all this will be only the beginning of the horrors to come."

*Sermon*           Only the Beginning        The Jews never doubted that they were the chosen people, and they never doubted that one day they would occupy the place in the world which the chosen people deserved.

They had long since abandoned the idea that they could ever win that place by human means and they were confident that in the end God would directly intervene and win it for them.

The day of God's intervention was thought of as /the/ /day of the Lord.

~/ /Between the Old and New Testaments there was a time when the Jews knew no freedom.

Their hopes and dreams of the day of the Lord became even more vivid during this time and a popular religious literature grew up.

Jesus and the Jews were all aware of this literature as well as the many mentions of the day of the Lord in the Old Testament.

This popular literature was based on dreams and visions of what would happen when the day of the Lord came and in the terrible time immediately before it.

This intertestamental literature was never meant to be taken as maps of the future and timetables of events to come.

Jesus was working with the ideas that the people knew, but these things were only pictures, for no person could really tell what would happen when God broke in.

Reading God's sign language is never easy.

Barclay says that "Mark 13 is one of the most difficult chapters in the NT for a modern reader to understand.

... From beginning to end, it is thinking in terms of Jewish history and Jewish ideas.

All through it Jesus is using categories and pictures which were very familiar to the Jews of his day, but which are unknown to today's readers.

Even so, it is *not* /possible/ to disregard this chapter because it is the source of many ideas about the second coming of Jesus..."

            Countless believers have gotten themselves and other people in trouble by claiming to have access to God's appointment calendar.

Jesus warned that nobody knows the day or the hour of God's visitation, not even the Son.

This means that instead of looking for some calendar or clock in the Bible, we should live and love in a constant state of expectancy.

Our focus needs to be on the eternal rather than the temporal.

“God, and God Alone”

     The temple plays a significant role in chapters 11-16 of Mark's Gospel .

Jesus has made three journeys to the temple and has debated with the temple's teachers over many issues.

Through it all we sense the impending demise of the temple as the center of one's relationship to God. ~/ The scribe got it right when he responded to Jesus by saying that love of God and neighbor "... is more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices" (Mark 12:28-34 [v.

33]).

Temple practices are not as important as a life of dedication to God and neighbor.

~/ The widow with her penny is also a sign of the need for the temple's demise (Mark 12:38-44).

The scribes, Jesus warns, devour widows!

These stories are the immediate introduction to Mark 13.

In the first verses of Mark 13 we hear of the coming end of the temple.

Jesus comes out of the temple for the last time.

His disciples haven't figured out what these journeys of Jesus to the temple are all about.

They still stand in awe of the place.