Nov 10, 2024 Remembrance Day 

Prelude
Lighting the Christ Candle

Welcome and Announcements

Call to Worship 

Christ sets before us this day life and death 

and calls for us to choose life that we and our children may live. 

We accept life, so teach us to live. 

Christ sets before us this day the call to be peacemakers; 

to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to a suffering world. 

We gather to embody God’s love and desire for peace for all people; 

to hear and give voice to creation’s cry for justice and peace. 

Hymn:  376 Lord the light of your love is shining

Prayer of Adoration 

O God, we are your grateful people, here to praise you and thank you for your grace given to us.  You sent Jesus, the Lord of the earth, your partner in creation to redeem your world and all people from sin.  In him all things are made new, and remain new.   

We praise you that he became the Son of Man, stepping into a spoiled world for the sake of sinful people.  As Son of Man his  death reversed the chaos of creation’s curse, and all things are reconciled to you.  In him all things are made new, and remain new in the light of your love.  Therefore with boldness and confidence we come before you confessing our sins, saying…. 

Prayer of Confession:  Unison
When we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that our lives are all that really belong to us. So, it is how we use our lives that will determine what kind of people we are. It is our belief that only by giving do we find life.  What does God want the churches to do? He doesn’t ask for fine gifts; but we give them, rather than commit with our whole hearts. God asks the churches to sacrifice for love of brother and sister. We respond with good words, rather than deeds that lead to justice.   Yet we yearn for a better world, and we commit to work together as God asks and then, all things are possible!  Amen 

Assurance of Pardon 

Jesus taught us to speak of hope as the coming of God’s kingdom. We believe that goodness and justice will triumph in the end and that tyranny and oppression cannot last forever. 

One day all tears will be wiped away; the lamb will lie down with the lion, and justice will roll down like a mighty stream. 

True peace and true reconciliation are not only desired, they are assured and guaranteed in Christ. 

This is our faith. This is our hope. In Jesus we are forgiven.   

The Peace
Passing the Peace 

Hymn:  357   How sweet the name of Jesus sounds

An Act of Remembrance:  see insert 

A Time of Remembrance
On this day of Remembrance we gather
On this day when the guns once fell silent.
On this day of hope in the face of terror,
On this day of sorrow because wars and ancient quarrels still dominate in countries around the world
We come before you God, praying with all our hearts:  Help us to find the path that leads to the Peaceable kingdom.  Open our eyes and the eyes of the nations to find a different path through the disagreements of life in this world.  Make us all seekers of justice that will lead to a lasting peace. 
On this day we recommit ourselves to serving the cause of Justice and Peace, saying:
Make us channels of your peace.  Let there be Peace on Earth and let it begin with us! 
The things, Good Lord that we pray for
Give us the grace to labour for. 

800 

 

Remembrance
The Laying of Wreaths 

Silence
 

 

Prayer for Peace 

Loving God, today we have remembered those who have died in the wars that were meant to bring justice, freedom and permanent peace.  Sadly that permanent peace has not yet come to be.  Yet, we trust that in you all things are possible.   

Lord, we pray for peace for those who grieve family and friends lost in war and peacekeeping actions.  May the tears they weep in silence, be seen by you.  May those who dare not speak out for peace, be heard by you.  May you be the peace-bringer for all people on earth, especially when all hope seems to disappear. 

In the midst of rage, violence and disappointment.  In the midst of wars and destruction of the earth, Lord, show us your light in the darkness and bring peace when all hope seems to disappear.  

Lord, we pray for peace for all those around the world who cry for justice.  Bring the peace when all hope seems to disappear, and may that peace be lasting and usher in an age of justice that stills all fears and raises up the downtrodden.   

Keep your church free, that it may be the channel through which justice and peace, integrity and wholeness, harmony and goodwill may flow to the dispossessed and the desperate, that your kingdom may come in all its fulfillment of life and health and peace, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Amen. 

 

 

An Act of Remembrance 

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.  

We will remember them
 

 

 

Scripture:

Responsive Psalm 146
Hebrews 9: 24-28  

Sermon:  Once for all 

Our lives are filled with tasks and chores that we need to take care of over and over again. 

The daily chore of deciding what to cook for supper. 

The repetitive necessity of mowing the lawn and then again a week later. 

And it seems we can’t be too young to feel as if that repetitive demand is overwhelming.  Children complain they just brushed their teeth yesterday.  Teens complain they just took a shower 2 days ago.   

Every day we encounter those things that we need to do again and again and again.  Frankly, we sometimes want to rebel and delay and postpone those tasks that we don’t enjoy.  They feel as if they are a burden and that they are hard to carry.  Yet in reality, they are nothing more than a chore that is easily dispensed of.  It is not as if our lives depended on them being done in a timely manner.  

 

Not so the sin offering that the people of Israel needed to make.  Their lives depended on that offering.  The offerings kept them in a right relationship with God.  For that reason they must go to the Temple again and again and make a sin offering for the sins they have committed.  It was a hard and heavy burden to carry. 

 

God knew that it was unsustainable for his people to be bound in the cycle of sin and atonement.  From the beginning of creation God had a plan for the redemption of all humankind.  He sent his son, his only son to live as a human on the earth, to do what all other humans could not do and live a life fully pleasing to God, a life without sin.   

Jesus died once for all, so that none of us ever again needed to be burdened with the need to go through rituals for the forgiveness of those sins.  They are forgiven, now and forever. 

So you ask why then do we come here every Sunday and confess our sins?  If we are forgiven why do we need to confess? 

Frankly, we don’t.  No matter what our sins are forgiven.   

But when we sin, how we feel about ourselves puts a barrier between ourselves and God.   

 

When we confess, and are assured that those sins are forgiven, then we are freed from our self-imposed burden of guilt and freed to live in gratitude.  

 

In the book of Hebrews our attention is focused on what really matters—that Jesus is the gift that is continually interceding before God on our behalf.  When we sin, Jesus reminds God that he has already paid for our sins.  And God remembers that we are and always will be forgiven.   

This process is what the commentator Eastman calls the effective intercession of Jesus that leads to lasting forgiveness. 

 

The story of how that happens is crucial to our faith.  This is at the core of what we believe.  This is the only thing that Paul ever wants to preach about.  Christ crucified and risen.  

Jesus crucified and risen, for the sake of all the humans that God loves. 

 

On the cross Jesus suffered and died for our sins.  He knew the separation from God that resulted in great loneliness and despair to the point that he wondered why God had abandoned him.   

That is the suffering for sin, permanent separation from God.   

 

We are reminded that when God created us, he used the words “we shall create them in our own image”.  We were created to be in a relationship with God, that is why in our sin we were separated from him.   

 

We are also reminded that God’s desire is for us to be in relationship with him.  That desire in God’s heart is greater than the barrier of our sin.  That is why he gave us Jesus who lived the sinless life, and then died with the burden of our sin on him.  He endured separation from God so that we don’t have to. 

After the cross, Jesus continues to intercede on our behalf.  Daily he reminds God that he suffered for our sin. 

He reminds God that he died once for all of us, and for all time. 

He reminds God that he is the substitution for sin. 

It bears repeating, what really matters is that Jesus is always before God, reconciling humans so that we can come blameless into the divine presence. 

Even when we mess up spectacularly.   

Even when we hurt one another.   

Even when we hurt God.   

 

Even then, Jesus delivers God’s promises and we can stand blameless before God and receive all of the benefits of the kingdom of heaven.   

That is why confessing our sin, is an act of humble boldness on our part.  We are not held back by guilt.  We are not considered unworthy.  We are received as the most beloved children of God and given the gifts of the kingdom.   

We simply say, “I messed up God,” and God reminds us that we are and always have been forgiven.  Not only that, he reminds us that we will always be forgiven.   

 

We are forgiven, once for all time. 

 

Hebrews also reminds us that while we still live this earthly life, we are still prone to temptation.  We are still prone to trying to buy, earn, and effect our own forgiveness.  Sometimes in our prayers we remind God of what we have done that has earned us his grace.  That is all so unnecessary, and so foolish.   

What we really need to do is come in gratitude, reminding God of what Jesus has done.  Then in gratitude we live so that what we do is a reflection of the grace of Jesus in the world.   

On the cross Jesus declared, “it is finished”.  There is nothing left for us to do.   

No sin offerings.   

No grand gestures.   

Nothing at all. 

 

We simply stand in the presence of God in gratitude and love.   

 

We gather every Sunday as the community of forgiven sinners who live by grace because we trust in the truth of the gift given to us by Jesus.   

We come to love God and to love each other.   

We come with humble gratitude to affirm that our lives are bound in the grace of Christ who died on the cross.   

Let us remember now and forever that in Jesus Christ we are forgiven, once for all.  Amen.   

 

Hymn:  372  Praise him, praise him

 

Offering and Offertory
Doxology 830

Offertory Prayer 

Take this, the gifts of our hands,  and the enterprise of our labours, and bless and multiply them for the sake of your kingdom alone. Amen. 

 

 

Gathering Prayer Requests
Prayers of the People and the Lord’s Prayer 

We have poured out our love as we worshipped  you this day.  Pour out Your Spirit on us, that we may know how to pray, and what to pray for! 

Fix our hearts and minds on what is true and honourable and right. Give us the joy and peace that comes from knowing and doing Your will. 

Keep us faithful to the call we have received in Christ Jesus, our Lord,  extending Your loving invitation to the world around us. 

We extend the invitation to accept the gift that Jesus brings as we pray for the people we know and love and the world around us.  By your Spirit, we enter into your grace bringing our prayers…. 

JOY 

Thanks for the gifts of salvation 

The people of Grace congregation 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONCERNS 

Maria, 

Bill 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WORLD 

Ukraine/Russia 

Jerusalem, Israel and whole Middle East 

The people of the United States following the election 

California fires 

 

 

We pray for all members of the armed forces who are in danger this day, remembering family, friends and all who pray for their safe return; O God  give peace. 

For peacemakers and peacekeepers, who seek to keep this world secure and free; O God give peace 

For all who bear the burden and privilege of leadership, political, military and religious; asking for gifts of wisdom and resolve in the search for reconciliation and peace; O God give peace. 

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:  350  To God be the glory

 

Charge and Benediction 

Once again, we’ve heard God’s story—a story of love and faithfulness, of mercy and compassion.  As God’s people, we are called to bring this story to the world, to tell and re-tell it by our words and our actions, so that others may hear and join the story, too. 

So go from here with joy and courage, strengthened and sustained by the grace of God,  the love of Jesus Christ, and the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

 

Sung Blessing  Go now in Peace.

   

Go now in peace…never be afraid. God will go with you each hour of every day. Go now in faith, steadfast, strong and true. Know He will guide you in all you do. Go now in love, and show you believe. Reach out to others so all the world can see. God will be there, watching from above. Go now in peace, in faith, and in love. 3 Fold Amen