Week 7 Sermon

Call to Worship

Listen, I will tell you a mystery!

We will not all die, but we will all be changed.

Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

God in Christ is the Victor.

Victory requires effort and struggle.

As we pray for and strive towards the full visible unity of the church,

we will be changed, transformed and conformed to the likeness of Christ.

Memorial Day

Living God, in whom there is no shadow or change, we thank you for the gift of life eternal, and for all those who having served you well, now rest from their labours.

Today we give thanks for those who during the last twelve months have died and entered into glory. We bless you for their life and love, and rejoice for them. We remember by name:

Gene Sewell

Gene Bishop

Craig Schmidt

Macklin Karius

Archie Eekhoff

Daphne Tefft

Gloria Overton

Len Pallas

Gene Burt

Mary Gates

Jerry Weiss

Peggy Nelson

Dima Krull

Annette Sanders

Mary E. Johnson

Carl Barnes

Carol Dillingham

Dick Webb

Dorothy Basham

David Lange

Ruth O’Donnell

Carol Wieneke

Karen Kurth

Ollie Weigel

Norma Reese

Dena Randolph

Pat Gugger

Les Krusemark

Roberta Starr

Richard Henn

Marlys Puchta

Norma Winchester

Allen Jensen

Callen Woolery

And all of those names that remain on our hearts not already named.

God of Jesus and our God, mindful of all those choice souls who have gone on ahead of us, teach us, and each twenty-first century disciple of every race and place

Amen

God, Let Your Light Shine Through Me

Pastoral Prayer

Lord God there is much in our world to pray for...

From around the world we hear many children crying, O God;

crying for food and drink and someone to enfold them in loving arms.

We see the desolate eyes of refugees, O God;

   plodding along war devastated roads,

   or looking from transit camps, and from behind barbed wire,

      for glimmers of hope.

We read about the abused sisters and brothers, O God;

   cringing from family violence,

   or suffering in ails,

   or assaulted in their own homes by strangers.

We hear the sobbing of the broken hearted, O God;

   betrayed by spouse or lover,

   deserted by parents,

   watching at the bed of the dying,

   or following a hearse to the cemetery.

We know about the disasters that afflict others, O God;

   the bodies mangled in road accidents;

   those devastated by disease or war,

   and the minds that have cracked under pressure.

We read about your church, O God;

   in some places overcrowding its buildings,

   in others battling to maintain services,

   or in some countries meeting secretly behind locked doors.

We look on the faces of both friends and enemies, O God. 

Some of our friends are doing it hard,

while enemies seem to be getting it easy;

yet all are souls for whom Christ died..

Loving god on this memorial day

We come before God, to honor and celebrate those

who walked into the chaos and evil that is war:

those who survived and those who did not;

None who have waded through evil, death and sorrow

are untouched in body, mind or spirit;

they are beloved of God.

and all are in need of reflection, renewal, comfort and healing.

It is for this kingdom that we now pray,

using the words Jesus taught us.

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.

Intro to Offertory

Sermon

Intro - we all die

I have some good news and some bad news which do you want first...

You will all die....eventually

That stings doesn’t it? That something will really wake you up on a Sunday morning won’t it...well we’re going to talk about that.

Not the way that you wanted to start out the Sermon that has the title “alive”

The fear of death is so central to the human experience that life is one long expedition just to not think about it

Much ink has been shed over death

People spend often spend a lot of time preparing for, thinking about, and contemplating their own mortality

memento mori

There is an really interesting motif in art called momento mori that is meant to categorize are the make us ponder our mortality

The story

In ancient Rome

As military generals

General rode into town on a chariot

A parade was thrown, and people would line the streets

in that chariot was a servant with him and that slaves only responsibility was to repeatedly say into the generals ear

Translates in English as “Look behind. Remember thou art mortal. Remember you must die!”

The servants role was to remind the person that thought they had victory in this life

The person that thought they had everything

Money, power, connections, victory

they were to be reminded that they too will die one day

Series Link up

So why talk about death now...

our series began with asking

why do you look for life in dead places

We are not bound to dead places but we are offered spiritual life

That gives us hope

Not that we would be able to bring ourselves alive by our own strength, but that God’s light would shine through us so that others can know God

This last week we talked about victory that nothing could separate us from the love of God here in this moment

This week we zoom out to what final victory might look like in God

Intro to Scripture

1 Corinthians 15:50–58 NRSV

50 What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” 55 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58 Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

We accept death through our eyes, we accept life through our hearts

It is a mystery

As we proclaim this Holy Mystery

How God will take our present life and weave it into a beautiful tapestry we will have no idea…but THAT God will do that, is the good news

Vikos is a cognate that means victory

Victory - long-standing depates about whether we can even experience true victory in this life, Paul shows us that remains a mystery. We don't celebrate that we know how we will get to final victory, we celebrate that God will get us there.

It is not about our victory over our physical selves

Greek’s had a big problem with the idea of physical bodily resurrection so they were hashing out the specifics in this passage

There will come a time of final victory and even if we haven’t died yet we will be changed instantly

But what about the people that are still here?

Do we have to die to experience the victory that you are talking about? In other words do we have to go to heaven to experience victory

Paul says no

It is not our flesh and blood that change

which is good news - the things that people most desire to change about themselves are physical outward appearance

We will all need to be changed to experience the glory of God the believers, the non-believers, those that are dead, those that are alive, no one will be ready to enter into the kingdom of God for it is God alone that will prepare us, and that preparation will happen one in a day to come

Both the living and the dead must be changed to experience final victory

This is the story of victory over even our bodies.

Which is good news for us because it means that our victory doesn’t come from worldly things

Victory doesn’t come from the number in the bank account or the toys in the garage, or the number on the scale or even the number of followers that you have.

Christ’s victory invites life into dead places

Paul here is clearing up the Christ is alive we are alive controversey

Physical Death

Death will loose it’s stinger

fear of bees analogy

But also dead places

Death is based off of sin and sin is based off of the law

This spiritual alive theme is offered to us here and now not in some distant reality

For Paul people are not saved they are on their way to salvation. There is no laurels to be rested on for Christians

1 Corinthians 15:58 NRSV

58 Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

Steadfast - means stable, set, or solid. In other words Christians can't be shifty or in and out. There a lot of things that I am not steadfast in. But Christian communities are supposed to be one of the things that I am steadfast in.

We perpetually continue the work of salvation

We hold fast not by hankering down, we hold fast by continuing in the work of the lord knowing that our labor is not in vain

We have a chance to be alive now

What is done for the lord is never done in vain friends. There are a lot of things that you could do that will not matter 6 months from now. There are a lot of ways that you could have used your Sunday morning this morning. Stand firm church in who you are. And know that the work you do for the Lord is not done in vain.

Benediction