Worship Service – August 15, 2021

Matthew 22:34-40

The Greatest Commandment

(34) Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducee’s, the Pharisees got together. (35) One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: (36) “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

(37) Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ (38) This is the first and greatest commandment. (39) And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ (40) All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Galatians 3:1-14

(1)You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. (2) I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? (3) Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? (4) Have you suffered so much for nothing–if it really was for nothing? (5) Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

(6) Consider Abraham: “He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” (7) Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. (8) The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” (9) So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

(10) All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” (11) Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith.” (12) The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, “The man who does these things will live by them.” (13) Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” (14) He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

Psalm 111.

(1) Praise the Lord. I will extol the Lord with all my heart in the council of the upright and in the assembly.

(2) Great are the works of the Lord; they are pondered by all who delight in them.

(3) Glorious and majestic are his deeds, and his righteousness endures forever.

(4) He has caused his wonders to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and compassionate.

(5) He provides food for those who fear him; he remembers his covenant forever.

(6) He has shown his people the power of his works, giving them the lands of other nations.

(7) The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy.

(8) They are steadfast for ever and ever, done in faithfulness and uprightness.

(9) He provided redemption for his people; he ordained his covenant forever- holy and awesome is his name.

(10) The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise.

Once upon a time a man had car trouble near a monastery. He knocked on the door, and tells the monk, “My car broke down. Can I spend the night?”

The Monks receive him with great hospitality. They feed him a wonderful dinner and even fix his car. They show the man to a guest room for the night.

As the man is about to fall asleep, he hears a strange sound. It’s a sound like nothing he’s ever heard. It’s a sound that draws him toward it.. He can’t sleep, wondering where that sound is coming from and what can be making it.

The next morning, he asks the Monks, “What is that sound I heard last night?” The Monks reply, “We can’t tell you. You’re not a Monk.”

The man leaves but cannot forget the sound. Years later he returns and pleads with them to tell him. Again, they refuse: “We can’t tell you. You are not a Monk.” He demands, “Well then, tell me how I can become a Monk.” The Monks answer, “You must travel the earth and tell us how many blades of grass there are and the exact number of grains of sand. When you find these answers, you will have become a Monk.”

The man sets out to complete the assignment. After years of searching, he returns as a gray-haired old man. He knocks on the door of the monastery. A Monk answers. The man is taken before a gathering of all the Monks. This is what he said, “In my quest to find what makes that beautiful sound, I traveled the earth and have found the answer to what you asked for. By design, the world is in a state of perpetual change. Only God knows what you ask. All we can do is know ourselves and that requires that we are honest and reflective and willing to strip away all self-deception.

The Monks reply, “Congratulations. You are now a Monk. We shall now show you the way to the mystery of the sacred sound.” The Monks lead the man to a wooden door, where the head Monk says, “The sound is beyond that door.” The Monk gives him a key to the stone door, only to find a door made of ruby.

And so it went as he needed keys to doors of emerald, pearl, and diamond. Finally, they come to a door made of solid gold. The sound has become very clear and definite. The Monks say, “This is the last key to the last door.” The man is so excited and anxious. He’s lived his life desiring to discover the source of that beautiful, captivating, seductive sound.

With trembling hands, he unlocks the door, turns the knob, and slowly pushes the door open. Falling to his knees he is utterly amazed to discover the source of that haunting sound was….

Sorry, but I can’t tell you, because you’re not a Monk.

Today I want to talk about God. There are two ways to talk about God. One is information that is learned. The other way of talking about God is by confession. To know who God is requires living by faith. Consciously in relationship with God through Jesus Christ, by whom we have been redeemed.

Many people come to church believing that the church can give them answers. If they can only get the right knowledge, they’ll have what they are searching for. Wrong. What they’re looking for is not knowledge but faith. And faith is about betting your life on a God whose promises are trustworthy. And the only way to “know” they are trustworthy is to risk living by them. To have a extolling attitude in living out their life in Christ!

Our message this week I’ve titled: “Extolling Attitude”. When I first gave the title of the message this week to Bonne, to pass on to those who do the Sunday worship preparation and set up. Might I add,”You all do a great job!”. She asked me what extol means. Extol, according to Webster’s, is to “Praise Enthusiastically”.

Reminded me of the song “I’m so excited”. by The Pointer Sisters.

I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it

I’m about to lose control and I think I like it

I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it

And I know, I know, I know, I know, I know I want you.

Here’s a little bit of information I would like to share with you today. Psalms 111 and 112 are alike, in that they both reveal the writer’s “Extolling Attitude”. Both begin with “Praise the Lord”, and both were written as acrostics with 22 lines corresponding to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Just in case you didn’t know, acrostics, are a poem, word puzzle, or other composition in which certain letters in each line form a word or words. Psalms 111 extols the works of God, while Psalms 112 extols a person who fears God. The authors and locations are unknown.

In Psalm 111:1 when the author writes,” I will extol the Lord with all my heart”, this may have been the passage of scripture Jesus had in mind when He stated that the greatest commandment was, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart”, in our Gospel reading today,(Matt. 22:37).

In our reading in Matthew,”the Pharisees” and in Paul’s letter to the Galatian Christians, both needed to be reminded that they lacked a “Extolling Attitude”.

If you remember, last week we read in, Ephesians 4:29 Paul taught:”Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

In our lesson today my prayer is that all who know Christ as Savior, will develop an extolling attitude for God. For it is sorely needed in our world today with so much division being created between the world the church and in developing views, on how we should handle the coronavirus pandemic and political loyalties.

Please understand this. We can only develop a “Extolling Attitude”, by knowledge acquired from and by faith in confession to God.

This Psalm, Psalm 111, extols God for freeing Israel from bondage to the nations. In 111:1, the author determines to publicly praise God. Then, in verses 2–9, he does so, speaking of God’s memorable works, works by which the righteous and compassionate God redeems and cares for his people. In light of God’s character and works, the author in conclusion in verse 10, declares that true wisdom arises from having right attitudes toward God and right actions for God. He then concludes with praise for God.

We all know that knowledge can be distance learning. Faith goes down to the very core of our being. It entails confession.

Example.

A little girl was flying her kite on a windy, March day. The dark clouds were hanging so low and she’d let out so much string, that her kite had disappeared in the clouds. A man came along and asked the little girl what she was doing. She said, ‘I’m flying my kite.” The man replied, “I don’t see it. You can’t see it. How do you know it’s there?” She answered, “Every so often it tugs at me.”

We feel the tug. We hear the sound that so captivates us that we want to know its source. We have this sense that something is missing in us that we cannot provide ourselves, so we set out to discover it. We’re like the Pharisees, who confronted Jesus, and the Gentile believers, Paul was writing to, who were being Influenced by the Judaizers and fearful of the Zealot Jews. Fear was influencing their decisions, their actions and their faith in God.

The good news is that “Fear” is conquered by “Faith”. As the Psalm writer extolled; “Great are the works of the Lord; they are pondered by all who delight in them. Glorious and majestic are his deeds, and his righteousness endures forever.”(Psalm 111:2,3).

Now it takes us awhile to trust in the God whose covenant, the Psalmist extols, is commanded forever. We try to overcome our fears with information man declares is eternal, with idols that eventually disappoint us. They disappoint us because we made them. We have this need for security. We think we can remove the anxiety of our impermanence by hiding in what we’ve declared is permanent.

We do it with our understandings of God and God’s will. We do it with how we do church. We do it with the ways we worship. We inherit or develop ways of worship that we find meaningful and then we declare that they are eternal. They cannot be changed. The fact is that what exists today exists due to a change in what once existed.

The truth is that all of life is a journey. It is movement. And even though we debate whether we want change or not, the reality is, change is constant. At issue is not whether we want change, but what kind of change it will be. Just look in the mirror. We cannot stop life where we want it and build a wall around it to keep it that way.

The covenant that God has commanded forever is that God is with us, redeeming us, renewing the earth, re-creating Creation. When we live in the fear that we’ll settle for less than what God wants for us, we hear the Psalmist assert, that is the beginning of wisdom.(Psalm 111:10)

There’s a story told of a king in Africa, who had a close friend with whom he grew up. The friend had a faith that no matter whatever happened to him, he could say, “This is good!”

One day the king and his friend went hunting. The friend loaded the king’s rifles, so the king should shoot the game being hunted. One time the friend must have loaded the rifle wrongly, so that when the king fired, it blew off one of his fingers.

The friend exclaimed, “This is good!” The king was so angry, he threw his friend in jail.

About a year later while the king was hunting he was captured by some cannibals, who were very pleased that their dinner that night was home delivered. As they were preparing the fire for the barbeque, they noticed that the king was missing one of his fingers. Being superstitious, they refused to eat anyone who was less than whole. So they let the king go.

The king remembered his friend in jail and went to apologize to him. The friend responded, “Don’t give it another thought this is good. If I’d been with you, they’d have eaten me!”

Now we don’t believe that God causes everything that happens. What kind of God would cause children to die in a house fire, or a fatal disease to strike an otherwise healthy person, or a hurricane, or tornado to wipe out a community.

What we can believe is that the God who has commanded God’s covenant forever is with us no matter what happens. God has not forsaken us. God wills that good come from bad.

The cross hangs in our sanctuary to remind us that God can be trusted to be at work salvaging good from every human experience. Divine love, self-sacrificing love is at work. It never ends.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise.”

Develop and hold on to a,”Extolling Attitude” for God and those who do His will!

Remember, “Fear” is conquered by “Faith”.

The Fear of the Lord should be spelled out as; Father, Eternal, Awesome, Redeemer. Be with me. I confess my sin and give my life to you. Forever, Always, In, Thy, Hands!

As we go through life, as individuals, as a nation, as a church, God is with us. We are not alone. We are part of Creation’s renewal. God invites us to trust in Him.

Hold on to a,”Extolling Attitude” for God and those who do His will! Remember, “Fear” is conquered by “Faith”.

In His Service, Pastor Joe

Did you notice the acrostic in this message?

Listen To Audio: Sermon 20210815

Listen To Audio: Service 08152021

Prayer of Confession:   Forgive us Lord, forgive us.  Let us expose the dark sides of our souls to the light of your grace; let us discover the sin that has been stowed away in our hearts and cast it into your sea of forgetfulness; let us see your goodness – our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, going before us, so we can follow him into your kingdom.  Amen

ANNOUNCEMENTS

 

Pastor Joe will be available at the church on Thursday afternoon from 2 to 4.  If you need to speak to him, contact Pastor Joe at 570-267-4570 (cell) or Email: joe.s.travis@gmail.com

Loose change goes to Kenya/Rev. Malaho

Sunday School starts at 8:30am

Men’s Breakfast Wednesday August 18 at 8:00 A.M.

Session meets Tuesday, August 24, at 9A.M. in the community building.

Newsletter Deadline – Tuesday August 31, 2021. 

Choir practice will begin Thursday, Sept. 2nd at 1:00 P.M. Please come and join us in singing praises to Jesus! 

Please sign up to host one of the social hours on the Sunday after Communion Service on the first Sunday of the month.  Hosting only means setting out what is brought and cleaning up afterward.  It does not mean bringing everything to share.

EMAIL address for the church has been changed to: fhpc400@att.net