Easter 2022

Welcome

CTW

LEADER: Alleluia! Christ is risen!

ALL: The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

LEADER: Jesus Christ, in Your triumph over the grave and Your resurrection from death, the heavens and earth rejoice!

ALL: We praise you, O God! For you have made us victorious over sin!

LEADER: On the mountain of the Lord, all people will feast and all wine shall be poured!

ALL: We praise you, O God! For you have prepared a table before us and our cups overflow!

LEADER: The Lord has swallowed up death forever; the Lord has wiped away the tears from all faces!

ALL: We praise you, O God! For you have brought us from death to life!

LEADER: The disgrace of God’s people has been taken away from the earth because the Lord has spoken!

ALL: We praise you, O God! For You have given us joy and gladness!

LEADER: The God of glory has found our hearts. The Lord of eternity has established our home.

ALL: We sing praises to God, for He is good. We worship the Lord, for love has come near!

Song: Love Changes Everything

Song: Is He Worthy

Song: Revelation Song

Communion

Passover: celebration of deliverance from death and slavery.

Jesus with his disciples: I want to eat this meal with you before I suffer.

Understand my sacrifice (I am the lamb) in the depth of meaning of this meal - there is coming a deliverance from a deeper slavery of all humanity to the power of sin and death.

I will soon confront and defeat the powers that hurt, destroy, kill (resurrection)

Paul - this meal is communion, fellowship, participation in the risen Christ.

Acts 2:42–46 NRSV

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts,

TODAY Jesus is hosting us. He is communing with us with his presence.

Through this meal, Christ makes us participants in his nature and character.

His presence feeds us.

• It is food for this life; kingdom life.

• It is a taste of what is to come.

Because the Lord himself communes with us in this bread and wine, we too are to commune with one another.

Responsive Prayer

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When our prayers seem unanswered, and silence surrounds us; then be present with us, Spirit of truth.

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For You will never leave us, and never forsake us; You promise to see us through.

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To You, all our hearts are laid open. We come as we are when we sing. From You, no secrets are hidden. In worship, we'll bring you EVERYTHING.

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We thank You, Father, for Your Son who knows us. You made it possible for us to know Him.

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You created all things for Your purposes, giving us all we need for life together as Your people; and we thank You.

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Leader: The Lord is here.

All: His Spirit is with us.

Leader: Lift up your hearts.

All: We lift them up to the Lord.

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When we went our own way, You did not reject us. You came to meet us in Your Son.

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You embraced us as your children and welcomed us to sit and eat with You.

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In Christ, You shared our life that we might live in Him and He in us.

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He opened His arms of love on the cross, sacrificing Himself to erase sin that keeps us distant from the Father.

Bread

Jack: Last Supper Bread

On the night he was betrayed, at supper with his friends he took bread, and gave thanks; he broke it and gave it to them, saying: Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.

SLIDE:

All: Father, we do this in remembrance of Him: His body is the bread of life.

[EAT THE BREAD]

Cup

At the end of supper, taking the cup of wine, he gave thanks, and said: Drink this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins; do this in remembrance of me.

SLIDE:

All: Father, we do this in remembrance of Him; His blood is shed for all.

[DRINK THE CUP]

SLIDE:

All: Father, make us one in Christ, our risen Lord. Amen.

Song: How Deep The Father’s Love

Teaching: Living a Post Resurrection Faith

Romans - Longest and most theologically controversial of Paul's letters. It's been said we've come to love Paul's teaching more than Jesus (Sermon on the Mount).

Viewed as the fullest expression of Paul's theology. Focuses on sin, righteousness, salvation, faith, death and rez of Jesus, the law, the HS, and others.

Written to: The churches in Rome that were predominantly Gentile with a Jewish minority.

Romans 6:1–14 NRSV

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

We Believe...

Creeds: We believe that something is true. Not: it is fact or regulation. WHY?

Facts can be true. Truth is not fact.

Regulations can be good and true but truth is not a regulation.

The fact craze: submit scripture and faith to scientific method.

Facts and regulations hold no power or authority in our lives to form us into the image and character of Jesus.

Belief = trust. What we trust holds power and authority in our lives.

The event of the resurrection of Jesus is verifiable. Some would call it a fact.

I’ve talked before about the dangers of reducing faith to facts, formulas or what we can grasp.

It allows us to go about our lives living in boxes with boxes to check off to ensure the end we desire.

It also allows us to not have to deal with some of the more difficult issues of life and faith.

Leaving us unaffected by God’s beauty, mystery, and the challenges of living in the tensions following Jesus brings.

As facts, formulas and graspable, faith is well, easier and it does not hold power and authority in our lives. It isn’t forming us into bearers if the image of Jesus.

Paul wrote Romans to a church that saw the resurrection as something that factually happened but did not allow it to hold power and authority over them.

Sexual freedom

Some: solve the problem by requiring them to keep the law/guidelines of Moses on top of trusting in Christ.

Paul knew guidelines wouldn’t solve the problem of unrestrained freedom; that trusting Christ is the only solution.

Paul trusted the spirit of Christ in these believers. Despite heart-breaking disappointments in the end, he would see Christ being formed in them.

Baptism: Where Christ forming Begins

Buried with Christ and raised with Christ receiving a new life.

To receive new life, something old in us has to die; be turned from.

Invitation to follow Jesus is an invitation to come and die; for the sin attitudes and patterns in us to die; to make room for the new character the spirit will form in us.

A dead person no longer owes anyone anything. Dying with Christ means the slate is wiped, new life can begin and the process of becoming free from the past starts.

Now, Christ lives in us and the life we now live IN THIS BODY we do trusting Jesus.

While there is a specific sin issue being addressed, Paul points to the broader, foundational issue and tells the church in Rome that we cannot continue (walk) in the old attitudes and patterns and expect to live.

Saying yes to this life is a process. Sin attitudes and nature constantly being revealed to us by the Spirit and we're given the opportunity to respond - to continue to be formed in the likeness of his resurrection.

If/when we allow these things to die in us, we are alive to God in Christ.

What is that new Post-rez life?

Participating in Christ’s rez life where the space for continuing in sin gets smaller.

It will be a lifetime of dying to/shedding and becoming free from the dominance of sin:

any attitude, pattern, etc that is opposite the character and nature of the Father, Son and Spirit and the Kingdom.

How is this going to work? Sounds great but in reality...

Perspective: solving the sin issue is not the end game. Kingdom life here and now is. Paul’s concern is for the life this church is created to live and the mission to which it is called.

The old attitudes and patterns are in the way.

Rules won’t fix it. Rules oppressively require obedience. Grace gives the desire and power to obey. Grace makes possible what following the rules could not.

Jesus: way, truth, life

Can only know the truth we believe by demonstrating trust that we believe this is true: walking in the way of Jesus that leads to life.

We can know (experience) the Rez power and authority that restores what was broken, destroyed.

To Heal

To Forgive

And Set free live and obey all that Jesus commanded

by living in the way of Jesus. This is trust.

Resurrection life is not about living a moral life, or successful life, or happy life. Resurrection life is about receiving a gift that changes all of life–-the gift of life overcoming death, the gift of grace greater than all my sin, the gift of an indwelling risen & rising Christ. Leonard Sweet

Song: The Blessing

Sending