May 5, 2024
Easter Season 

Lighting the Christ Candle

Welcome and Announcements 

Call to Worship
We come with joy to this celebration of God’s love!  

Open our hearts, Lord, to receive your love.  

We come with hope to this witness to God’s power!  

Challenge and encourage our spirits to serve you, Lord.  

We come with a willingness to proclaim God’s presence to all.  

We thank God for this invitation to worship, witness and serve. AMEN.  

Hymn:  706 Come Let Us Sing

 

Prayer of Adoration 

O Beloved God, All the ends of the earth marvel at your deeds of power.  We feel your presence as growth returning to the countryside.  We see your creation bloom with the promise of the season:  the flowers that bloom, the trees budding forth.  We praise you for recent rain which nourishes the soil and the plants.  Everywhere we look we are reminded of your love for creation and for us.
We rejoice as we remember your faithfulness and steadfast love revealed in the risen Christ.  We are grateful that you chose us, while we were yet in sin.  We are humbled that Jesus chose to die for us. 
Surround us with that faithfulness and steadfast love.  Fill us with generosity and courage so that we may be called your friends and go forth to befriend your world. That we may continue to live filled with wonder and confidence, we pause to confess before you how we have failed your love:   

Prayer of Confession:
Can it be that easy, Jesus? Can it be that hard? That what You want for us is just to love and be loved?  Is it possible that even those who have tried the hardest, signed on the dotted line, sat for years in classes and strained their eyes from reading, dressed in all the most appropriate garments, and spoken with only the most measured words…that these can miss You?  How do we make sense of this, Jesus?
We confess that we have failed to love so scandalously, so inclusively.
We have not allowed ourselves to be loved enough, that all our hard and sharp edges have grown soft and round. 
Help us to find the humility and courage, the boldness and grace, that in our loving and being loved, we may somehow ignite our world with a compassion so fierce that violence and abuse, rejection and condemnation, neglect and greed become unthinkable.  Amen. 

Assurance of Pardon 

Jesus says to us:   You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 

Let us always remember that in Jesus we are forgiven, in Jesus we are restored in grace, in Jesus we are called to the joy of sharing his love with the world.  

Passing the Peace 

Hymn:   698  Saviour teach me day by day

Scripture:

 

Psalm 8  
John 15: 9-17  

  

Sermon:  I love you and I choose you 

We have arrived at the final Sunday of Easter.  Ascension is coming, when Jesus will return to Father, until the time when he comes again.  

Today we read one of the discussions that Jesus had with the disciples to prepare them for the time he is no longer present with them.  It is important that what he passes on is something that will encourage them and give them the affirmation that they need to take on what will be a difficult calling.   

In his discussions with the disciples he reminds them that they are from love, for love.   

But what exactly does that mean?    What does it mean that we are from love?  Whose love?   

When we consider that the love we are from is God’s love, we have to wonder what it means to be from God’s love.  How does that make a difference in our lives?  Are we worthy of that love? 

The Psalmist asks those same questions as he ponders the wide gulf between his worthiness and God’s ever present love.   

What are humans that you are mindful of them?  What are human beings that you care for them? 

We live in a world where humans are not valued by other humans.  That lack of love and respect can be seen in families where abusive words and actions fill each day.   

Lack of respect is seen in the ways humans can treat those whom they consider to be lower than themselves.  Servants, the poor, the indigent. 

That lack of respect is seen in the ways in which we speak to each other, and we see a world where name calling is becoming rampant, and people are belittled for what they believe, think or say. 

Worse yet, that lack of respect is seen in the relationships between countries, where attacks are seemingly directed toward people who are just struggling to survive.  Hospitals are attacked.  Children are killed by bombs. Asylum seekers are unwelcome and often returned to a country in which their lives are in danger.   Aid workers are attacked for bringing food, or water, or medicine to those who need it. 

We as humans don’t respect or love each other, how then can God love and respect us? 

Is it any wonder that so many people struggle with finding a place to belong, or a place where they feel loved, or respected, or valued? 

Who are humans that God loves them, regards them as the apple of his eye and sends his son to die for them? 

Who are they?  Humans are God’s very own people, created in his image, created in love, and called to love and to serve the world and the people who inhabit the world. 

Truly we wonder that God doesn’t desire to wash his hands of the lot of us.  We see that struggle as we watch him lose patience with his people and sends them into exile again and again.  Yet we also see his desire to love them and draw them unto him, as he plans and prepares for the coming of the Messiah, who will redeem each and every one of them through his death. 

And yet we struggle knowing that none of us is worthy; all of us are sinners. 

Hoezee when commenting on the Gospel passage, reminds those of us who will preach on it, that what we are supposed to do is proclaim God’s love given to us in Jesus Christ who has done everything for us. 

More importantly he reminds us that Scripture shows us that our salvation is pure JOY! 

The Psalmist wonders how it can be that humans have been made a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.
6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
    you put everything under their feet:  all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, 8 the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea,  all that swim the paths of the seas. Psalm 8:  5-8 NIV 

Hmm, it seems that there is a lot of responsibility that comes with being the beloved of God.   

That sense of responsibility seems to flow in the Gospel as well.  Where we are commanded to love and to be servants and to bear fruit. 

Hoezee warns the preacher to avoid the temptation to preach about our responsibility to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, heal the sick, home the homeless, bring the world back to seeking peace, and a whole litany of other work that meets the criteria of bearing fruit for Jesus. 

Our relationship with God is more than a long list of things that we must do.  This can lead us to thinking that if we adhere to the list that we can then earn God’s love.   

God’s love is not earned.   

It is freely given because he chooses us to be equal, not with angels, but with Jesus who died for us.   

Really what is the most important statement in this Gospel reading is the affirmation of our worth in God’s eyes.  Jesus reminds the disciples that they didn’t choose him, and that rather, he chose them.   

This is important for our sense of self-worth, but also so that we will know who we really are, and to whom we belong. 

But where do we belong? 

Too often we want to be chosen by the popular group, especially when we were in school.  But, do you know that even the popular group struggles with feeling important?  At a recent grad reunion my friend Wendy was talking with someone from that “in-group” and who said they were always so envious of the drama group and all the great productions in which we got to take a part.   

Students from athletes to scholars, cheerleaders to dramatists are all looking for something they feel that they lack, and which they see in others.   

The truth is, that as long as we compare ourselves to others, we are deceiving ourselves about our own self-worth.  Our self-worth is not measured against other frail humans; rather, our self-worth is measured against the one who chose us, died for us and rose again to redeem us.   

Our self-worth is in the one with whom God calls us joint heirs.  We are equal with Jesus in all things simply because God chose us and keeps choosing us.  In our salvation we are sealed in our creation identity—the image of God. 

We are: the apple of God’s eye  

The focus of God’s love 

The ones for whom his heart longs 

The ones who are worthy in Christ 

And more importantly, the ones whom he chooses to reach out and touch the world with love; not our love, but his love.   

Are we keeping track of the ways in which God chooses us in Jesus? 

He chose his son’s death over ours 

He chose to forgive all our sins and make us sinless in his sight 

He chose to redeem us from Hell 

He chose to give us the power of his Spirit 

He chose to make us equal with Jesus in all things. 

He chose to fill us with his love, his wisdom, his grace and his mercy.   

The number of ways in which God chooses us is endless and his love for us is boundless.   

The one who created us in his image, chooses us again and again, as he longs with all of his being to draw us into relationship with him.   

We have been chosen to be a part of what Hoezee calls THE HOLY PIPELINE OF LOVE. 

Pipelines of love that never stop flowing.  Springs of living water that keep spilling over.  Mercy and Grace without end.  Power to give love to others. 

This love definitely comes from God, through Jesus and the infilling of the Spirit. 

We are reminded that God loves us. 

We are assured that Jesus loves us. 

We are told to expect that the Holy Spirit’s love will be within us—forever. 

And because we are loved, with absolutely no limits on the quantity and quality of that love, we are able to love.  As we live in that love, it will be seen in our living—not because we have to—but because we want to.   

And in that moment, we will discover not only that our Salvation is pure joy; but also, that our service is pure joy. 

For that reason, God in Christ chooses us; and we choose God who created us and deems us worthy.   

So really, there is nothing left to say, except this:  

 God chooses you and loves you, world with out end.   

Go forth and rejoice.   Amen 

 

Hymn:  699 All the way my Saviour leads me

Offering and Doxology 830

Offertory Prayer 

O God of love, with all the love that you have given to us, we return to you these gifts of our wealth, our service and our living.   May the love poured into this offering change the lives that it touches.  In Jesus name, Amen
 

Gathering Prayer Requests
Prayer of Thanksgiving and Intercession 

God of goodness and mercy, of gentleness and kindness: you are the light of our salvation, and day by day, moment by moment you sustain our souls. 

We thank you that your are continuously renewing us and transforming us by your steadfast love into the people of God. 

Today, we offer the daily tasks that reflect you, in our living, trusting in your grace, to bring all that we do into the fullness of your mercy for us, all your people and your world. 

We bring thanks for: 

The recent rains 

We pray for: 

Our congregation and community 

 

Our world 

 

Gaza and Israel
Russia and Ukraine
Student protesters 

Keep us loving you with everything within us.  Keep us loving our neighbors, and even our enemies, as ourselves.  We ask all these things in the name of Jesus who taught us to pray saying: 

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 debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, for ever.  Amen 

 

Hymn:  704 Teach me God to wonder

 

Benediction  

God has chosen you to go into this world with the message of God’s love. Bear fruit of hope and joy, peace and justice, with all that you meet. May God’s mercy and grace be seen in you.  May his love flow from you.   

And may the love of God, the grace of Jesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit be with you now and forevermore.   
 

Blessing Song: 

Sing a new song unto the Lord
Let your song be sung from mountain’s height
Sing a new song unto the Lord
Singing hallelujah 

Schutte, New Dawn Mills, 1979