Rights to Relationship

Pastoral Welcome

Welcome to Faith Chapel, one of three sites of Ankeny First United Methodist Church. This week we wrap up our sermon series on the Upside Down Kingdom. God’s kingdom flips our understandings of riches, stewardship, generosity, judgement, and forgiveness all upside down. Maybe there is a sense in which the gospel of Jesus Christ flips even our relationship with God upside down. To bring us from a sense of rights to an understanding of relationship with God. Thats what our scripture is about today, but before we get into that. I invite you to bring yourself most fully into worship this. Morning to set aside distractions, for those of you worshiping at home there might be all sorts of distractions around you today, and I invite you to center on God this morning. Let’s sing of how great God’s faithfulness is this morning.

Pastoral Prayer

God so often we forget that your kingdom is not only beyond on understanding, but beyond our imagination. O God We remember that before we even speak you know what’s on our hearts. There is nothing we could say that would surprise you. In this season as we remember your kingdom that is Upside Down, I am reminded of the ways that I sometimes pray as if your kingdom is only for certain people. So Lord God we pray for those that we remember is this time, and also for those that we don’t. We pray for those that are struggling that those that are celebrating. We pray for those that are laughing and those that are crying. Those that are rich and those that are poor.

Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayer

We pray for the ill and for the healthy. For those of us suffering in hospital beds, doctors offices, and even just our own homes. At the same time we celebrate our health. We celebrate the hurdles that we have overcome in our own health journeys. We give thanks for the many of us who have survived this last year, and at the same time we lament and cry out over the many deaths that our community has seen. We pray that in all things we be reminded of our temporary nature and of your eternal glory.

Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayer

Lord we pray for those that are connected and those that are disconnected. We lift up the individual communities that surround us, and we give thanks for the people in our lives that have shown us love and care. O God help us we pray as we learn to reach out to you and reach out to others in our midst.

Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayer

God I pray for us as a church that we might be drawn together in unity. For the lay and the clergy, for those that are new and those that have been around here a while, for those that are connected to our church, and those in our community that are not connected to our church. Remind us of that when we fall astray. Challenge us to think about who our neighbors are. Lead us by your sprit and for your kingdom into the next chapter of our Church’s life.

Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayer

Lord we pray for those that are hungry and for those that are filled. Those of us who hunger we pray that we might find physical, spiritual, and emotional nourishment. Those of us that are full, full your love, full of your grace, help us to stay in love with you and to share of your abundance with others.

Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayer

God we pray for the leaders in our life, but we also pray for the people that we lead. Help us to be faithful leaders, good teachers who point others around us to you, the greatest teacher. When we are led help us to with humility accept the advice of others.

Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayer

Lastly, Lord God we are reminded of the temptation to pray only for others, and so today we pray not only for others, but also for ourselves. In this moment of silence we pray that your grace might lead the way in our own life. That we might be satisfied in you, and that we might find some semblance of your call in our own personal lives.

(10 seconds of silence)

Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayer

O God we pray for the kingdom that you created in the beginning, for the kingdom that you redeemed with your son, and for the kingdom that your holy spirit continue to live and reign through.

As we pray the prayer that your son taught us either from memory or from reading off the screens as we say...

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 trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass 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 and ever.

Amen.

Transition

Celebration

Sunday School Celebration - celebrating Sunday school - if you love working with kids and might be interested in helping out here at Faith Chapel, or at Vacation Bible School, or at one of our other sites we would love to get you connected.

Offertory

One of the ways that I started seeing giving Upside Down

it was though our Pathways to Generosity Stewardship campaign this past year

We were reading bishop Snaezies book, and it helped remind me that I have all sorts of needs as a person

I have a need to give

A life that is of meaning and purpose means that I give of myself to God for God’s purposes.

That I have a need to sacrifice my time, talent, and treasure

It is an upside down way of looking at stewardship

Our church has a time in our service for offering, and I want you to know that time is not about the needs of the church. It isn’t about keeping the lights of the building on.

That time of offering is about recognizing our need for generosity, our need to give for other, and to remember Jesus who gave even himself for us. The ultimate expression of giving.

If you are looking for an opportunity to respond through giving...

plates, texting, online, mailing in a check to the Uptown Office.

May we participate in the kingdom that is built on generosity.

Intro

Being “saved”

From what? For what?

Seems to me to be about entitlement

seems to be about rights or knowing that you will be in heaven one day

I’ve come to believe that what that means is a question of if there ever was a moment that I had surrendered

or if there was ever a moment when I proclaimed Jesus as my lord and savior a moment transition where I felt reassured by God

Truth be told I either hadn’t had one of those or what I have come to realize is probably even more probable I have actually had several of those moments

I can remember pivotal moments with God at a number of places in my story

Marching around Urbandale High School praying that God would raise Christian leaders to lead a high school ministry and seeing that come to fruition.

Moments of surrender in worship at Wesley Woods one of our Iowa United Methodist Church camps.

I remember praying in a prayer and meditation room in the basement of the Chapel at Simpson College and hearing God’s voice there

The point is that for some of us we can point to one moment in our faith journey where everything flipped upside down, for some of us it is many moments, and maybe for some of we are not yet aware of moments that God has been at work in our story.

My story is one that has taken many years, but our story today comes when two people have an encounter with Jesus in some of their last moments on earth.

So let’s dive in to hear about the criminals who came to understand Jesus in their last moments.

Scripture

Luke 23:39–43 NRSV

39 One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

The epitome of the Upside Down Kingdom is the cross

Instrument of death being used to create Paradise

An innocent person that suffers

suffering that produces freedom for many people

A king ranked among criminals

The Authorities Ranked Jesus with The Robbers, Jesus Ranked the Robbers With Himself

Jesus dies amongst the outcast - in true upside down format

Jesus starts his ministry by proclaiming good news to the captive

Remember me

OT Reference

think of me when you are gone

We don’t proclaim our guilt, we proclaim Jesus’ innocence

Herod and Pilot have BOTH said that Jesus is innocent

There will be some people who think they are not worthy others that think they are a good person

We have all sinned and fallen short

Everyone is in need of grace

all he did was good stuff

Confession - what the guy here is doing - So often we think religion or church is all about realizing that we are wrong and that we are messed up.

The Upside Down part of this is that we confess that Jesus is so so so innocent. That the lamb of God does not deserve the sins of the world but yet is so good that he might take them on. He was the sinless dying with sinners, the innocent sharing the fate of the guilty, the pure Lamb of God taking on himself the sin of the world. It calls Christians to confess the great work of the innocent Jesus.

Worship - in awe of Jesus not in shame of ourselves

Worship shouldn’t be a place that brings us shame

Worship shouldn’t be something that we hesitate looking forward to

Worship should be a joyous occasion Why?

Because it is about Jesus!

It is about Jesus’ innocence

The Cross Shifts Us From Rights To Relationship

while there is life there is hope

Don’t link relationship with time

Grace can finish the formula

Even in death Jesus had power to make people right with God

There is a sense in which the Upside Down Kingdom is about relationship now. It is not about when we die. It isn't even about some other distant time in our life when we will have more energy or time the kingdom is for now

That the kingdom of God is defined by relationship not by God's judgement, or rules, or rights, or codes

Word play throughout it is unclear if Jesus is talking about the coming kingdom of God, or if he is talking about a kingdom that is here and now.

Today you will be with me in Paradise - today - just a sweet by and by

Today you are welcomed into the upside down kingdom

The whole theme here really is that we get to choose

Kingdom means that there is in fact already an established king, and a reign that is worth following

Benediction

Upside Down Benediction

Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as your Lord,

in union with the Church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races?