Sermon_Manuscript040607
Sermon Worksheet & Manuscript
Robert L. Hutcherson, Jr.
Quinn Chapel A.M.E. Church
Sermon Preparation/Delivery
Luke 23:26-34
“Were You There? – Simon Of Cyrene”
The Rev. Karla J. Cooper, Pastor
April 6, 2007
“Good Friday”
Sermon Worksheet & Manuscript
TEXT
"When they led Him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, coming in from the country, and placed on him the cross to carry behind Jesus. And following Him was a large crowd of the people, and of women who were mourning and lamenting Him. But Jesus turning to them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.' Then they will begin TO SAY TO THE MOUNTAINS, 'FALL ON US,' AND TO THE HILLS, 'COVER US.' For if they do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry? Two others also, who were criminals, were being led away to be put to death with Him. When they came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left. But Jesus was saying, Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing. And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves." (Luke 23:26-34 NASBR)
BODY
My name is Simon. I come from Cyrene in North Africa. And I would tell you of the day that changed my life forever. The day that changed my life dawned like any other that spring in Jerusalem. There is a freshness about the early morning in the Judean hills; the air is crisp and clean, and the dew sparkles on the low vines; they grow them along the ground there to catch it.
I remember how excited I was. For years, I'd lived for that day. It's every Jew's dream, of course: to be in Jerusalem for Passover. But it was my dream too ... to celebrate it there ... at least once.
Jerusalem is beautiful. I was not disappointed in it. Till I came there I'd thought my home town in North Africa the most beautiful in the world - 2,000 feet up it, and you look down from it to the Great Sea sparkling blue - marvellously blue - in the sun. I was a fruit farmer there, as my father was, and as I planned for my two sons, Rufus and Alexander, to be. Date palms. That plantation was my pride and joy. and the view from it a bonus I never tired of. Beautiful for elevation Cyrene is. But so is Jerusalem ... so white and compact and ... regal, somehow, like a shapely crown on its proud hill.
And the Temple! It took my breath away. Magnificent!
I'm not ashamed to admit I wept through the whole of the evening sacrifice that first time. My feet were standing in its courts! And to see the smoke rising from the great altar into Jerusalem's sky, the temple singers wafting it heavenwards on their chorus, and the priest in white, his arms uplifted. I tell you my very soul felt lifted up to God.
And then, as I say, the Day of the Passover dawned, and we all washed and dressed in a fever of anticipation.
We were early leaving the village, We wanted to spend the whole day with our hosts and help with the preparations. We overtook a flock of bleating sheep on the way in, I remember ... no doubt the last of the Passover lambs for sale in the Temple.
The Passover has always had a solemnising effect on me. I don't think any but a Jew could ever understand the feeling we have for it. I remember the Rabbi we talked with in Alexandria when we visited the synagogue there on our long journey, said to us, when he learned we were pilgrims, "In every generation, each individual is bound to regard himself as if he personally had gone forth out of Egypt."He was quoting the rubrics, I knew, but I understood him very well. Every Passover I felt it ... felt as though I were an Israelite in Egypt, sheltering behind the blood-spattered door in the dim light of our home from some nameless dread out there in the eerie moonlight, while we ate the roast meat, and the dry, biscuity bread.
I'm not sure I ever truly understood it all, but I remember the feeling was always strong with me that our protection from the death that threatened all the land outside was that we sheltered under the blood of the lamb that was God's provision for that meal. I never could see the killing of that sweet creature (the children always loved it by then ... they'd made a pet of it) without a feeling that innocence was being violated most cruelly. Was there no other way we could be given safety when God laid the stroke of His judgment on the land?
Such thoughts were far from my mind, of course, as we climbed the hill to the city gate in the early morning sunshine
There was an added air of excitement in the city that morning; a lot of talk about the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee - all sorts of tales about healings and miracles, even the raising of a dead man in a nearby village. People had been talking of nothing else for days. Marvellous stories. He'd led some sort of procession into the city at the beginning of the week, and created no end of a stir in the Temple … even been hailed as the Messiah, I was told. "But you mustn't believe all you hear," they said. Nothing much seemed to have come of it all. When I'd been in the city the day before, nobody seemed even to know where he was.
Once we were through the gate, the city was unbelievably crowded, and the noise of shouting people was deafening to my quiet country ears.
But I remember, as we jostled our way along the narrow streets between the tiny shops, how there seemed to be a sort of lull; and then over the relative quiet there came the sound of another crowd - as though some sort of procession was moving toward us. There was an ugly sound to it; it sent a shiver through me.
After Pontius Pilate had ceremoniously washed his hands and declared, "I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it," the crowd shouted back almost gleefully, "His blood be on us, and on our children." The only thing left for the mob to do then was to rejoice over the success of their freshly-washed robes of self-declared righteousness. Had the Jews put Jesus to death in their own way, He would have been stoned; but since they were doing it the legal way…the Roman way…He was crucified. The history of death by crucifixion is an old one. Alexander the Great borrowed it from the Persians. Then it was copied by the Carthaginians. And finally it was adopted by the Romans who used it to execute slaves, thieves and prisoners of war.
But the Romans considered death on a cross far too cruel for their own citizens. It was because of this that, according to rather firm tradition, Paul was beheaded by a sword instead of being crucified as was Simon Peter.
There had been the trial before Annas, the three trials before Joseph Caiaphas…the preliminary trial, the regular trial, and the repeat trial…the one early in the morning to make everything legal and within the letter of the law. There had been the trial before Pilate and the trial before Herod. And there was the final trial before Pilate.
In addition to this, Jesus had gone through endless mental and physical torture. There had been the pain of three times finding Peter, James and John asleep while having Judas betray Him with a kiss. There had been the pain of seeing Peter slash off a man's ear with a sword. There had been the pain of seeing His disciples flee. There had been the pain of being bound and having His hands pulled high between His shoulders. There had been the pain of being before Caiaphas. There had been the pain of being scourged by the order of Pilate.
The man delivered by the procurator to the mob was already half dead. He was a pitiful sight with the crown of thorns on His head and His raw back and swollen face.
As the mob faced Jesus, they faced a man who was utterly worn out. After His hours of agonized praying in Gethsemane He had gone from one weary trial to another, and He had not had a bite of food or a drop of water since the Last Supper the night before.
What happened then happened so quickly we never had a chance to avoid it.
Round a corner came a bustling, shouting mob, walking half backwards while they watched some spectacle that was moving along behind them. They were on us before we knew what it was. Behind the people jostling at the front there was a squad of Roman soldiers, and behind them, in the space they were barely able to keep clear, there were three men one behind the other shouldering heavy cross-beams.
There was a soldier in front of each of them carrying a wooden sign. They always did that in crucifixion processions - a warning to the general public by advertising the crime the man was being executed for.
"Dysmas, Robber and Rebel" the first sign read. When they strung him up they'd nail that board to the cross above his head.
The noise and confusion was awful, and the pressure of the crowd pushing past made me afraid for the safety of my wife and two boys. We were wedged between pushing bodies and half lifted off our feet.
We tried to push ourselves back against the wall behind us, but it was no use. We were bundled along … like rocks being rolled along the sides of a water course when a flash flood rushes down from the hills.
Just when I thought we should lose our footing and be trodden under, everything came to a standstill. The procession stopped.
The second prisoner in line had stumbled; he was flat on his face in the filth of the sewage channel that runs down the centre of the narrow streets. I just had time to read his charge board before the soldier laid it down to try and get the prisoner to his feet.
"King of the Jews", it read.
Anger flared up in me. We Jews are used to insults from the Romans, but this was an outrage. The spectacle of the man it tickled their Roman fancy to proclaim our king was revolting.
There was a sort of bird's nest on his head; at least that was the first thought I had as I stared at him. Then it dawned on me what it was - a mock crown twisted into shape from long, wicked thorns that someone had jammed on his head, so blood had streaked his face and matted his beard. As he lay there face down in the street I could see his back - red raw, with ribbons of skin hanging from it. He'd been flogged.
The Roman scourge must be one of the cruellest whips ever invented, with bits of jagged bone and metal in it designed to tear skin away in shreds. It had reduced this man's back to a bloodied pulp. He'd been humping the rough cut, heavy cross beam on that … and I shuddered to think what the coarse timber would do to his back when he was nailed to it.
I was never so sickened by the sheer humiliation to which a man can be put as I was by the sight of that man, spread-eagled in the street, his face in the gutter, the heavy cross beam all askew across his mangled back, the flies buzzing over it in a cloud, with the board on the stones beside him, "King of the Jews" … and people in the crowd shouting, "Where's your donkey today?" and "Preach us a sermon, why don'tcha?" and "Yah, look at him … he's got no spirit."
The road at the beginning of the Via Dolorosa was about twelve feet wide and led up a straight incline before it sloped toward the Damascus Gate. Jesus, with the heavy cross on His shoulders, did not walk as fast now as He had the day before when He led the Twelve into the Upper Room, the eleven to the Garden of Gethsemane and the three into the edge of the Garden. The cross on His shoulders was heavy enough, but added to that weight were the past sins, the present sins, and the future sins of the entire world. No one else but the Son of God could have carried that load!
As the newly formed column moved toward the grim place of execution, there were multitudes who watched from the streets and the roof tops of stores and houses. Some of the people jeered. Others were silent. Some turned their heads and dabbed at their eyes. Some of them yawned with unconcern. Others giggled and laughed.
In that crowd, however, there were people whom Jesus had healed of blindness. But now they were blind again…this time blinded by their tears. One can almost hear these former beggars shouting frantically, "No! No! You can't do this to Jesus. He healed my eyes!"
But these cries were ignored, and the procession plodded on!
Also in that crowd there were some whom He had cleansed of leprosy. And I could see them gesturing with the new fingers Jesus had given them and shouting frantically, "No! No! You can't do this to Jesus. He healed my leprosy!"
But these cries were ignored, and the procession plodded on!
And in that crowd there were some whom Jesus had made to hear and to speak. And I could see them listening to Jesus' groans and then shouting with their new voices, "No! No! You can't do this to Jesus. He healed my ears and gave me speech!"
But these cries were ignored, and the procession plodded on!
Then all at once Jesus, the Carpenter of Nazareth who had carried many a beam on His shoulders, stumbled and fell to the ground. Someone kicked Him, but He could not get up. His humanity was exhausted.
I heard the centurion shouting, "Get him on his feet man," and the soldier shouting back, "It's no use, sir. He's all in."
"Chuck a bucket of water over him," someone shouted.
The prisoner was on his knees then, trying to struggle to his feet again, shaking his head to get the blood and sweat out of his eyes, and groping about with his hands like a man in the dark.
"What's he groping for?" I thought. Then I heard someone beside me say, "Dear God, he's searching for his cross, to take it up again."His spirit was so willing … so ready to go on to his appointment with death. "Like a lamb to the slaughter," I thought. The words of the prophet came involuntarily to mind. The sight of him searching for his cross in such weakness, like a marathon runner staggering blindly at the finish on rubbery legs, looking for the way to go … I choked on a sob.
"God help us if he dies on us here," the centurion shouted. "Someone'll have to carry it for him." The centurion was now in a dilemma. He could not ask one of his soldiers to carry the cross, nor could he ask a Jew to carry it. For if a Jew even touched it, he would be defiled and not be able to partake of the Passover. And Roman officers were definitely forbidden to interfere with the religious practices of their subjects. *
"Well I can't pick a Jew to do it - not today," the soldier shouted back. "It's one of their feast days. They'd lynch us - right here in the street."
One wonders where Peter and James and John were at this time. They could have carried the cross. They did not need to fear not eating the Passover, for they had already eaten the Last Supper with Jesus! Peter and John had been at Caiaphas' palace a few hours before. But where were they now? Jesus had been very close to them for three years, but in this moment of trial they were not there to pick up the load for Him! And still He loved them! Oh, what a Christ!
And the soldier drew his short sword and strode over to me. He brought the flat of it down on my shoulder. "You," he said, "Carry this cross."
Fear and anger rose in me. I didn't want to be involved. I didn't want to be separated from my wife and the boys. I didn't want any part of it. I began to protest. "I'm a Jew … here for the Passover … we're pilgrims, from Africa." It was a waste of breath.
"Roman Law," the soldier said. "You don't have any choice. In the name of the Emperor I impress you into service with the Tenth Legion. Now pick it up."
I really think I might have lost my temper if it hadn't been for the prisoner.
Our eyes met.
I've lived with the memory of that look for years now; but I don't think I can describe it rightly yet. There was appeal in his eyes, and gratitude; yes. But there was something else … a sort of urgency. His eyes were telling me, "It's got to be done." If he couldn't carry it, someone had to - the way a banner has to be raised again when the flag-bearer's fallen in battle. What purpose he thought was served by it I had no idea; but whatever it was, it meant everything in the world to him. The cost didn't seem to matter.
So I shouldered the thing … and almost fell myself! I had no idea it was so heavy. It was then that I noticed that it was taller and larger than the others.
We moved. There was a huge rebellion in me at first. Such a monstrous injustice. I felt wretchedly humiliated, as though the cruel gibes were all screamed at me … as some of them were of course. So when I picked up the cross, I was met with jeers and boos…the abuse that was heaped on me as I stood to my feet with the cross over my shoulder. Then somebody came right up to me and snarled, "Now you're defiled. You can't partake of the Passover. You are the most ignorant ignoramus I ever met!"
But after a bit, I became aware of a bunch of women not far behind, weeping and wailing. I couldn't catch all they said, only snatches.
"... healed my child." and
"...weep for you" and
"God save you" and
"It's so unfair."
How he found the strength to answer them, I'll never know. But I remember what he said - every word. I told Luke later ... dear Luke, the gentle physician.
"Daughters of Jerusalem," he called, "(and there was not a trace of self-pity in his voice) "Shed no tears for me. Shed them for yourselves and your children. The days are coming when they will say: 'Happiest of women are the barren, whose wombs never bore, whose breasts never suckled.' They will call to the mountains, 'Fall on us,' and to the hills, 'Bury us.' If they do these things when the tree is green, what will they do when it is old and dry?"
This was a very remarkable prophecy concerning what was to come. I wonder if Jesus would have had the strength to utter those words without my help? Perhaps not! Carrying a wooden cross a short distance seemed insignificant to me, and yet it enabled Jesus Christ to preach! What you are doing for the Master may seem very trivial and insignificant, but it enables Him to carry on His work, for we are yokefellows with Him. Listen to what Jesus had to say on this matter, "And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward."
He was more concerned for their distress than he was for his own. But the centurion shut him up to keep us moving.
The greatest honor ever given to a human being was when Mary conceived and gave birth to Jesus Christ. The next greatest honor given to a human being was this honor…the honor of carrying Jesus' cross.
Jesus had instituted the Lord's Supper the night before. But on this gloriously terrible day He continued a custom that He has never stopped. This wonderful custom is that He always walks with the one who is carrying a cross!
But how unexpected the honor was! When I left home I had no idea that I would play such an important part in history! And perhaps as you hear this the Lord will honor you and ask you to shoulder a burden. Maybe right now He's saying, "I want you in Burma, Africa, India, Mexico. Or maybe in a voice that is soft and low He is saying, "I need you in the Sunday school. I need you to visit the sick and shut-in. I need your tithes and offerings."
If He is saying these things you should answer, "Yes, Lord," and feel honored in doing so!
Now we often hear that a cross is something that we voluntarily pick up; but this is not always so. Remember that I was compelled to carry it. Please remember that real Christians are obedient Christians, and that if we are to obey, we must pick up the burdens Jesus hands us and be thankful to carry them!
I do not know what kind of cross the Lord may present to you. But whatever it is, carry it! The cross-bearer carries something that Jesus cannot carry in order to enable Jesus to do what the cross-bearer cannot do!
The task I was asked to complete was not a very spectacular one. My job was simply to carry a cross a few hundred feet; Jesus Himself had already carried the cross most of the distance. Although the job looked insignificant at the moment, it turned out to be extremely important!
It is easy enough to get people to assume big crosses…crosses with publicity attached to them, crosses that the multitude can see. But it is very difficult to get them to assume the little crosses that are unnoticed by the crowd. Yet, often it is the little cross that does the most good!
Teaching a Sunday school class is not always an easy thing. To some teachers it is a very heavy cross. To work on a lesson for a class with its quota of rowdies is not always easy. Many a teacher goes home and weeps over the happenings of the day. And yet it so happens that here and there a screaming toddler, a paper-throwing junior hears something from or sees something in the teacher that brings about a great change.
*Do not despise the seemingly little things! My burden was not unusually heavy. My task was not drawn out. But it was very necessary!
You may be asked to assume a cross for the simple reason that no one else will carry it. I was not chosen because I was pious, or faithful. I was chosen because no one else could be had!
Are you weary of your burden? Look at Jesus by your side. He is carrying the heaviest end of the load…the end with the rough edges. And if He isn't, it is only because you will not let Him!
Are you weary of the scorn of the crowd? Look at Jesus, more of the scorn is being heaped on Him than on you!
Are you weary of your tired, aching, diseased, faltering body? Look at Jesus. He was so weary He fell. And His body was covered with wounds, spittle and blood!
It seemed to go on for ever. The Romans see to that. They work out the longest route to the place of execution so more of the population will see the prisoner and read his crime on the charge board.
When we got to the hill at last, every instinct in me shouted, "Get away." And I would have done so… only they wouldn't release me till the prisoner was nailed down and hoisted up. Regulations.
I had to watch them drive the long wicked nails through his wrists. I had to watch as one soldier held his feet, one above the other, while another drove a nail through both. They're stripped stark naked. Apart even from the pain, there's no dignity left to a man. Absolutely none at all.
What stopped me from being sick was what the prisoner said while they were doing it. Between spasms of pain as the hammer blows fell, he shouted to the heavens above him, "Father" - a spasm of pain - "forgive them" - another blow and another spasm - "they don't know … what they're doing."
I couldn't believe it. This ugly, twisted creature, shouting to the heavens to forgive them. To see a man so tortured display a spirit so selfless and forgiving while that was being done to him broke me up.
They were done at last. They hoisted up the cross with him on it, and dropped it into place. It fell into the hole they'd dug for it with a sickening thud. It must dislocate God knows how many bones in the body. And then began the rasping breathing which, if you've ever watched a crucifixion, is one of the memories you carry for ever after. There's some way they hang the body on the nails through the wrists that constricts the chest so they can only breathe by pushing themselves up on the nail through their feet. That's why they can be finished off by having their legs broken: they can't breathe any more after that, and they suffocate.
I still carry the memory, seared on my brain, of that twisted wreckage of a man, savaged by pain and indignity, naked on His cross.
I won't need to go into any more detail - you know most of it. But what I do have to tell you is what it did to me - that tortuous trek through the streets, the two of us so close and silent, and me with his cross on my back.
I fell to wondering what he must be feeling.
It was all right for me; I'd be a free man again in an hour or two, and with my family again (if I ever found them, that is!) Tomorrow we could spend a quiet shabbat.
But for him there'd be no more tomorrows.
What would I be feeling if I were he? What would the remaining hours hold for me if, like him, I was facing crucifixion?
There'd be worse humiliation, if that were possible, for they stripped a man stark naked when they crucified him. There'd be an eternity of excruciating pain.
It dawned on me most horribly that I'd never - until I died on it - be rid of this cross on my back. I'd never again be parted from it. I shuddered to think what it meant to be staring death in the face.
Never to sleep and wake again to the bright day. Never to come again in the evening to my excited children. Never to hold my wife in my arms again and make gentle love. Never to watch the red sun sink over the rolling sand-hills of Libya into the shining sea.
Never to sit with a friend again while the night wind whispered in the palms, and know the comfort of quiet laughter. Never to know the pride and relief of driving a hard bargain for my harvest so we'd be right for the winter.
You come to an end of everything - everything. Desire, that fills up all our life, drained clean away. Nothing seemed important any more. All a man's ambition, all his striving, all his eager wanting, all his loving ... it all shrivelled up to nothing till it was a huge foolishness, all of it. To what profit did a man spend his strength for it all?
Was that how Jesus saw it?
I learned later that he said to his disciples more than once, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross every day, and follow me." I tell you, I understand now -from that day - what he meant. You die to everything in this world.
But even though I didn't know that then, I found myself wondering what it was that really motivated the man, just a little ahead of me, that he should be going with such flint-hard determination to his death.
From that first time our eyes had met, I knew he didn't feel what I'd been feeling. There was no hopelessness in him. He had some fierce conviction in him I couldn't understand - not then - that his progress to his cross was the most profoundly important thing in the world. He was willing Himself to get there. I can't explain it, but by a sort of strange infection, I found myself willing it with him.
But what did he believe he'd accomplish in his dying?
I understand it now of course. since I've become His follower. All those Passovers I'd experienced ... they all came flooding back to me when later Peter shared the Message of the Cross with me. The strong sense I used to have that our protection from the threatening death outside where God's judgment was brewing was the way we sheltered under the protection of the lamb God had provided. I understood what it meant that Jesus was the Lamb of God. I understood the truth to which the disturbing ritual has mutely witnessed, that the innocent must suffer for the guilty - God's Innocent!
I still tremble when I ponder it, what it cost him that day, to shield us from The Stroke. Whenever I recall the fierce commitment that drove him, my whole soul flames up in gratitude to God, that in His heart there should be such a hunger, such a passion to redeem us from the curse.
And to think I was given a part in it! ... an unwilling part, I confess to my shame. I'd have given anything that day to have been spared it. I blush to remember the rebellion, the utter confusion of face I felt.
But I tell you - though I don't speak of it often - I tell you, on my bed at night I shake sometimes for very pride that I walked that day with the Lamb of God - bore for him the cross he bore for me - and I rejoice now with joy unspeakable and full of glory that I suffered shame for His Name.
I have not found it hard since that day to renounce the world. I died to it all that day with Christ, do you understand?
O I love life still, and all its dear delights. I do ... as I love my wife and children still ... but differently. I lost them once, the day I took up the cross of Jesus ... and received them again because he gave them back to me. They are precious to me because they are his gift.
I know that unless a man receives the life of this world every day from his hand, as his gift, it is all an empty, deceiving show, not worth the spending of a man's strength to get it. If Christ be not in it, it is but dust in a man's hands.
I still feel the weight of that cross on my back. Not every day. I wish I did. The days I don't are my bad days ... lost days. The days I do are the good days ... days I live for him.
It is a better world we strive for now, I and my wife, and my sons. We have settled here in Antioch since so many were driven out of Jerusalem after Stephen was martyred. God is building here a fellowship of freed men who with Christ will outlive this world.
Paul wrote a thing the other day (did I tell you Paul has been our pastor here? My wife has been a mother to that beloved man, for we opened our home to him when Barnabas first fetched him over). For all his intensity (he does push language to the limit sometimes to get said what he sees, so it's hard to keep up with him ), we do love that man. He wrote a thing the other day in his letter to the churches he planted in Galatia, which, if ever I should be led out to die, I, Simon of Cyrene, would ask to have written on my crime board! He wrote:
"God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."
That day I had to give up taking the Passover because I had carried the cross and thus defiled myself. But whenever we give up something for Jesus Christ, we always receive far more in return. Remember the Master said, "And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life." *
Yes, I gave up the Passover, but in its place I received the "peace that surpasseth all understanding."
It was an excellent bargain!
Order of Worship
Friday April 6, 2007
12:00 P.M.
Opening Hymn……………………” Christ The Lord Is Risen Today”, Hymn 156
Doxology………………………………………………..All
Call to Worship……………………………….Bro. Robert Hutcherson
Hymn…………………………………“Low In The Grave He Lay”, Hymn 168
Prayer…………………………………………..Bro. Robert Hutcherson
Prayer Response………………………………….Give Us This Day”
Scripture Reading……………………………..Bro. Robert Hutcherson
Decalogue………………………………………Bro. Robert Hutcherson
Gloria Patri………………………………………….Congregation
Sermon…………………………………………Bro. Robert Hutcherson
Invitation to Christian Discipleship..”I Know That My Redeemer Lives”, Hymn 167
Altar Call/Offertory………………………………………All
Offertory Response……………………………”All Things Come Of Thee”
Affirmation of Faith…………………………………Congregation
Benediction……………………………………..Bro. Robert Hutcherson