March 6, 2022 11AM Worship at Myers Park

[Music] hmm so [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] good morning friends and welcome to our 11 o'clock worship service on this the first sunday of lent uh welcome to those of you who are in the room welcome to those of you who are joining us online it's good to be together in this way it's good to worship god in this way my name is james howell i'm one of the pastors here i'm up front this morning with my friend and colleague reverend taylor pride barefoot good morning it's good to be in worship with you all today just a reminder because this is the 11 o'clock service we will have children's chapel so during the glory of pottery if you are from kindergarten to second grade we invite you to come and worship with some of our ministry staff as dr howell mentioned it is the start of lent which means we hope that you find ways to get further connected in the life of the church some of those opportunities are lenten small groups wednesday bible studies and there's devotionals so we encourage you to look into that as you pursue your lenten journey we also know that our hearts continue to break with our ukrainian brothers and sisters and through conversation and partnerships with the church of poland we have a ukrainian disaster relief fund and so we encourage you to learn more about that and to participate in that as we continue to be the church for those that are hurting all across the world let us continue on in worship [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] we mark the weeks of lent by extinguishing a candle each week please join me in our responsive reading all those who find their protection from god will find rest and assurance all those who love god and call upon him for help will be answered and rescued [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] lost [Music] oh [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] church let us continue to raise our voices together as we affirm our faith with the apostles creed which is found in your hymnal on page 881 i believe in god the father almighty maker of heaven and earth and in jesus christ his only son our lord who was conceived by the holy spirit born of the virgin mary suffered under pontius pilate was crucified dead and buried the third day he rose from the dead he ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of god the father almighty from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead i believe in the holy spirit the holy catholic church the communion of saints the forgiveness of sins the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting amen [Music] you may be seated pray with me our prayer of confession which is found in our bulletin lord we come to you in all our brokenness sin has crept into our hearts molded our minds formed our words and separated us from you meet us in these broken places heal our wounds and grant us hope amen hear the good news christ died for us while we were yet sinners that proves god's love for us in the name of jesus christ you are forgiven in the name of jesus christ you are forgiven glory to god amen friends it is our privilege that the service to celebrate the sacrament of holy baptism julie and rob delbovi bring their son noah william for the sacrament this morning brothers and sisters in christ through the sacrament of baptism we are initiated into christ's holy church we are incorporated into god's mighty acts of salvation and given new birth through water and the spirit all of this is god's gift offered to us without price so friends on behalf of the whole church i ask you do you accept the freedom and power god gives you to renounce evil and repent of your sin if so say we do do you confess christ as your savior put your trust in his grace and promise to serve him as your lord if so say we do and will you nurture this child in christ's holy church that by your teaching and example he may be guided to accept god's grace for himself profess his faith openly and lead a christian life if so say we will will you the members of myers park united methodist church include this family now before you in your care will you proclaim the good news and live according to the example of christ will you surround this family with a community of love and forgiveness that they may grow in their service to others and will you pray for them that they may be true disciples who walk in the way that leads to life if so say we will friends let us pray gracious god with nothing existed but chaos you swept across the waters and brought forth light in the days of noah you save those on the ark through water when you saw your people as captives in egypt you deliver them through the sea their children you brought to the promised land through the jordan in the fullness of time you sent your son jesus he was baptized by john and anointed by your spirit and he calls his disciples to share on the baptism of his death and resurrection pour out your holy spirit now to bless this gift of water in him who receives it to wash away his sin and clothe him and righteousness throughout his life that dying and being raised with christ he may share in your final victory all praise to eternal father through your sons jesus christ who with you in the holy spirit lives and reigns forever and ever amen noah william delabovi i baptize you in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit jesus said i am the light of the world therefore let your light so shine before others that they may glorify your father who is in heaven child of god as you grow in age may you grow in grace and in the knowledge of our lord and savior jesus christ we rejoice to welcome you to the family of god [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] ah [Music] so [Music] please stand for the reading of the gospel the gospel reading is luke chapter 4 beginning with the first verse and jesus full of the holy spirit returned from the jordan and was led by the spirit for 40 days in the wilderness tempted by the devil and he ate nothing in those days and when they were ended he was hungry the devil said to him if you are the son of god command this stone to become bread and jesus answered him it is written man shall not live by bread alone and the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and said to him to you i will give all this authority and their glory for it has been delivered to me and i give it to whom i will if you then will worship me it shall all be yours and jesus answered him it is written you shall worship the lord your god and him only shall you serve and he took him to jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him if you are the son of god throw yourself down from here for it is written he will give his angels charge of you to guard you and on their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against the stone and jesus answered him it is said you shall not tempt the lord your god and when the devil had ended every temptation he departed from him until an opportune time this is the word of god for the people of god hope you guys will bear with me i woke up this morning a little bit rattled i had this uh very vivid dream that um it was so weird it seemed like it was really happening that the russians invaded charlotte and they came to queens and providence and their goal in being here was to keep us from building our church building it was like a it was some difficulty that we were in fighting them off uh thinking about uh russians and ukraine i do love the connectional nature of our denomination we aren't just a solo church so of course when the war in ukraine broke out i was able to reach out immediately to bishop patrick strife who was the bishop over poland and other eastern european countries he actually was in our church he and i celebrated holy communion here on world communion sunday five or six years ago i don't remember and i was to reach out to him and uh get in contact with pastors who were fielding refugees flooding in from ukraine i know you will want to give generously it's not even some massive big fun this is very personal and focused churches people that we're talking to i was interviewed a week and a half ago in a webinar that was sponsored by the upper room this is sort of a spiritual publishing arm of the united methodist church and the interviewer surprised me with her first question she said what are your childhood recollections of lent and i just had to say i have no childhood recollections of lent i was a severely underchurched person i had never heard of lent until i was in seminary now when i heard of lynn i was really drawn to it i thought a 40-day focus season that works for my personality uh 40 days jesus was in the wilderness 40 days that was appealing and if you noticed the title of the piece that evan played at the beginning the wc it's a piece entitled lentz but then the subtitle has the word melancholy i'm someone if you know me i i'm not a sunny optimist i always envy those guys i tend to veer towards some melancholy so when feels like a season of melancholy i dug that uh i was as a child uh motivated by guilt now if any of you had those kinds of appearance you know what what an affliction to carry through life my parents motivated by guilt so i thought wow lent is perfect years later i learned lent isn't actually about god motivating us by when but that that's a different story a season of folk of focus a season of fasting what could seem more counter cultural than fasting if you were here on ash wednesday dr uyon kim gave a lovely homily and in it he told a story that i remembered very well it goes back to the moment that i'd called him up in lenoir and i offered him a position here i said i'd like you to come and join me and be one of the pastors at myers park methodist church now normally in such a situation i have my ways to persuade people to say yes and a lot of it involves whining and dining like you know let's go to supperland i mean some great restaurant i give them great food have another glass of wine surely you want to this is my normal mode this wasn't going to work with the yawn because after i offered it to him he said i'll tell you in four days and i said why four days he said well i'm going to fast for four days nothing but water so i could just be alone with god and hear if god is calling me to your church this made me very nervous i just have to admit because i know how to do the whining and dining thing but at that point if you'd come back and said no i'd be arguing with god this is a holy man fasting that's an odd thing fasting is it's not a time to go on the diet that you should go on the rest of the year it's giving us something that's precious to you not because it's bad but you give it up so that you can grow closer to god i think about uh for a number of years i would give up chocolate for lent i love that's an understatement love chocolate and so i would give up uh chocolate for the 40 days of lent i used to think well those girl scout cookies come in really handy because they have those dosy does that are pretty good substitute for chocolate about this time of year aren't they so i would give up chocolate for lent and i would have bad days so on my bad day what would happen is i'd want a chocolate chip cookie and i would think oh i can't have a chocolate chip cookie poor me i was on a bad day i had worse days and on those days i would think i am so holy because i am not eating the chocolate chip cookie i would have better days and on the better days what i would realize is how superficial are you that you were undone by something as silly as a chocolate chip cookie on my good days i would realize that i have this hangering for the chocolate chip cookie but that's not really what i'm hungry for the chocolate chip cookie won't really satisfy it won't really bring me hope it won't give me eternal life what i really have a hankering for that i wouldn't notice if i didn't have the hankering for the cookie that i've decided not to have is that i have a hankering for god the hollow place in me is the place where god wants to come and dwell and i've crowded god out on my good days i would think about the people in the world who can't just grab a chocolate chip cookie or anything else they're poor they don't have much and i could enter into some kind of even temporary solidarity with them a lot of fast that you could engage in during a season like lent i know people that they shut down facebook berlin i have a friend he shuts down his smartphone he still uses it as a phone like you can call him but he doesn't use it for anything else he's not surfing the internet checking ball scores stock prices surfing the internet for in for he doesn't do that there's a fast you see what what lent can do is expose our addictions it can expose what we're very attached to that is just so not going to deliver the goods my daughter is a pastor up in winston-salem texted me yesterday and she said dad are you going to do the thing where you ask the people to give up alcohol for lent and i said well not this year but i should we did this years ago if you remember and we're here i said let's give up alcohol for lens and give the money this is my brilliant idea i thought of a driving church the day i was announcing that i said well take the money that you would spend on alcohol and you'll give it to the church we'll call it the spirit fund this i was just so proud of myself one guy actually did this he came in he said i did what you said was a great experience here's the money and it was like five bucks like really when we did that by the way quite a few people coming out of church that they said to me things like i don't think i could do that and i'd say that's what you need to know one group of adults they had a class they loved to meet together they said i don't think we could meet together and not drink and i said well i think that's what you need to know exposes our addictions god asks us to do hard things we like the idea that god comforts us god makes our life easier but if you read the bible god asks us to do hard things not easy things and doing hard things if you do something that's hard it's really memorable later if you do something that's hard you you have some pride in what you've got to god asked us to do hard things above the kerry newcomer song you can do this hard thing god has made us to where we can do hard things for god jesus goes in the wilderness for the season of testing and we could look at this passage and say can i overcome temptation the way that jesus did this is a fool's errand you and i would stand a chance out in the wilderness against the devil himself and and and the temptations are interesting aren't they for instance if i were offered the power to turn rocks into bread i'd i'd do that because there's so many people in the world that don't have enough food so yeah let's get some bread for these people instead of just letting them be rocks lying around on the ground jesus is offered power over all the kingdoms of the world i would take that in a nanosecond because locate these clowns that are running the world and i think i can do better than these guys and i would i would be a benevolent dictator people would be glad that james is in control of the world or even at the church level we don't have a pope in methodism but i have often thought we should have a pope and i should be the pope and people would be glad i would reign benevolently you see we forget this the lesson in the lord of the rings tolkien understood this even the wise gandalf refuses the ring of power because he understands that power corrupts he understands that what jesus was about wasn't ruling over anybody having power over anybody what jesus was about was humble service jesus was about putting his arms around the people that nobody else wanted empowering them giving life to those who were vulnerable the last temptation is interesting the devil takes jesus up to the pinnacle of the temple and he says jump which would be a very bad idea indeed but the devil quotes scripture this is so interesting do you ever have somebody quote scripture and they seem so holy when they quote the bible to you but just because somebody quotes the bible does not make them holy the devil quotes the bible to jesus and he quotes his favorite bible verse which is in psalm 91 which says god will protect you that's the devil's favorite bible verse you know why because we think that we read the bible kind of thinly and we think oh yes god will protect me but then i got cancer or my husband was in a car accident or my daughter lost her job god wasn't protecting us there must not be a god and the devil says got another one that bible verse works every time except it doesn't work on jesus jesus won't jump parenthetically we're talking about the devil what is the devil is there a devil when i was a little boy if you'd asked me what does the devil look like i would have said well he's a red guy he's got horns he's got a tail he's got a pitchfork and he's breathing fire i don't know about you if a red guy with a pittsburgh breathing fire came running at me i would run as rapidly as possible away but the devil doesn't look like that the devil looks the devil's like really good looking and the devil comes to you and says man have i got a deal for you you want the moon i'll give you the moon and we ah we just get so drawn it's so attractive it's so attractive uh nico's cousin zachas in the last temptation of christ he imagines jesus out there in the wilderness and there is this what the devil is like for him is is this this bird that has these claws it keeps flapping up behind jesus and plants its talons into jesus back and jesus is like leave me alone some theologians would say the devil's greatest while is to convince us that the devil doesn't exist i for one go for thomas merton's approach thomas merton says what the devil wants is for you to think about him all the time see what the devil wants is attention what the devil wants is credit do you know people that think this like yeah the devil's behind every rock yeah the devil made that happen who were nervous about the devil a pastor reached out to me yesterday and said i want a study for my youth group about the devil and i told her about thomas merton i said well thomas mergen says instead of talking so much about the devil the devil wants attention i said what thomas mergen says instead of focusing on evil instead of focusing on the devil what we should do is focus on the beautiful face of jesus and if we focus on the beautiful face of jesus and all that is good and noble in the world we won't even notice that darkness what would undo us i think for most of us the devil comes in the form of versus voices that rattle around inside your head do you have voices that rattle around inside your head if if you don't report to me after the service we all have voices in our head i don't know about you i stay pretty busy during the day so the voices in my head afflicts me more in the middle of the night when i wake up in the dark and what are those voices that are the voice of evil that would undo us their voices in your head and it may be you're no good you didn't just lose the game you are a loser or there may be voices in your head that say you're just not enough you just don't have enough their voices in our head that judge other people those people are so stupid those people are so wrong how could they vote for that candidate those peop those those are the voices in our head the voices in our head and it's really the good life in america and you hear the voice and it's like if you only could buy this if you only had this experience if you only had if you only lived in this neighborhood if you only if you only if you it just goes on and on and these are the voices i wonder if the real point of lent should not be that this is a season when we train ourselves to sort out the voices and our heads so that we might actually hear the voice of jesus instead of the voices of evil at least i flew to arizona back this week for anniversary and i should have brought i have these noise canceling earphones they're amazing and what they do once you put those on you can't hear like anybody around you like i can't even hear lisa talking you know it's like and they cancel out all of the noise and you hear only what you're choosing to listen to like that'd be the gift of the spirit that we asked for lord i want those noise canceling spiritual headphones so i can hear jesus voice and let all the other racket just diminish just diminish noise can't swing i thought again about that dream where the russians wanted us not to build the church one of the voices of the devil is to say yeah church is nothing i think the devil loved the pandemic so many people during the pandemic said to me meh just got out of the habit of going to church the devil's like got another one got another one luke even this is so interesting luke names the political powers of the day almost as if they're part of the evil that is testing jesus he names the emperor tiberius he names the governor pontius pilate he names the judean king herod as if they are the embodiment of evil if i say to you political rulers the embodiment of evil you don't have to go far to figure out that this is the case if i say to you today vladimir putin you go yes that is god's evil in the world i'll go with you on that if i say to you the name job biden half of america will say yeah that's the embodiment of evil in the world and if i say to you the name donald trump the other half of americans will say yes that's the embodiment of evil in the world do you see how that works you see how that works we believe that the powers are the powers we believe that everything really does depend on them but it's all false it's all chicanery it's all violence it's all force it's not of god none of it is of god i interviewed for my wednesday bible said he's not going to be out this week but the following week gary mason who's a pastor in ireland that i've gotten to be friends with he's pretty amazing he's uh done peace and reconciliation work between palestinians and israelis he's done this work in northern ireland and we were talking we were talking about how christians need to be engaged in the world but he said you can't count on the political powers and the way he phrased it was lovely he said why do we invest ourselves in the temporal instead of the eternal why do we invest our hopes in the temporal instead of the eternal the temporal can't bear the weight the temporal cannot deliver it will let you down every time it will fool you every time it's just the temporal we want to invest ourselves in the eternal oo young kim and his ash wednesday sermon quoted thomas merton who spoke truly when he said the source of all sorrow is the illusion that of ourselves we are anything but dust god is all our joy and in him our dust becomes splendor you are dust and that's not a reason to hang your head an embarrassment you are dust you are the dust like adam god breathed into you the breath of life god has given you the gift of life you are god's god's eternal love is always holding you and surrounding you he is your destiny he is your hope he is the one voice that speaks truth and life and hope and brings joy why do we look to the temporal instead you are dust and it becomes splendor i would love it if this year for lent what we could all do is to take it as a season to cut out whatever it is we need to cut out turn off whatever it is that we need to turn off so that we can hear the voice of jesus so that we can see the face of jesus he's so beautiful last sunday we sang pharris lord jesus beautiful savior picture jesus out there in the wilderness and the devil comes and offers them what everybody would want and jesus says no thanks i i want to do god's will i don't expect anybody to understand it but that's all that i'm about nothing else matters i'm not in it for me i just want to do what is god's will and he's so holy and he's so good and he comes out of that wilderness and and he doesn't hang out with the cool people he touches the people that nobody else would touch he honors the people that nobody else gave two cents for he heals the broken he gives hope to the vulnerable he gives his very life for us he is our savior dies gives us life for us god raised him from the dead how beautiful was his face when god raised him on easter did his mother see him disciple sawing so much beauty let's attend to the beauty block out whatever draws us away pretends to be beauty but it really is not the real beauty of this jesus lent thanks be to god let us prepare our hearts for prayer oh lord of us all as we move through this lenten season help us to draw near to you in praise stripping away all that distracts us from worshiping you forgive us for our apathy for our lack of courage to speak out forgive us when we walk past those who are hurting and don't stop to help forgive us when we get it wrong may we be a liberating presence and offer love kindness whatever is needed to act justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with our god lord in your mercy oh god of grace and love let us serve you in our world we ask that you would lead us into action give us strength to be a voice crying for justice and peace pour on your people such love that we cannot remain silent we cannot tolerate injustice we cannot tolerate poverty in your grace fill our hearts may we be stirred into action to demonstrate your care for all people in the world lord in your mercy oh god give us hearts hungry to serve you and those who need what we have to give today we pray for countries where justice seems far away where human rights are ignored let us remind those in power that prisoners are not forgotten we pray that the dignity of life is respected and remember those who have lost that dignity through war through infirmity or neglect lord in your mercy o gracious god today we pray for the power to be gentle we pray for the strength to be forgiving we pray for the patience to be understanding lord in your mercy all of this we pray in the name of your son who taught his disciples 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 trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not to temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever amen so grateful for the many ways in which you support our ministries here at the church one of them is the music ministry and linda mayo is coming grab the mic there linda and share with us a little bit about what music ministry has meant to you so join with me amazing [Music] is [Music] was [Music] i once was lost but now i'm found music in the church is a place where i feel found it's holy it's a place that i can be closer to god monday through saturday we don't hear music like we hear here from the glorious organ to the hand bells the chimes the choral music the voices corporate worship it's holy we don't hear that monday through saturday i was very fortunate that i was raised in a household that church music was a big part of my life we sang around the piano my mother played the old coaxberry hymnal and we sang music around the piano so i'm very fortunate i've always sung in a choir i've always either led children's choir music or played hand bells it's a part of me where i feel holy we are so lucky here that we have the level of music we have here with evan's leadership hughes leadership this magnificent choir here but mostly you are the choir the congregation you are the choir music ministry is just leading you to be closer to god through music and god is our audience and with jim and craig's help we sound pretty good we really sound good so music ministry to me is a place where i feel found and when we've been here 10 000 years i want music ministry to be a part of what we do especially on sundays and hopefully monday through saturday so join with me when we've been there [Music] as the sun we know [Music] thanks be to god linda thank you it is your gifts that make this program this ministry possible and so many others in advance of your giving today thank you so much you [Music] [Music] is is [Music] jesus [Music] is [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] so [Music] you must know [Music] [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] please [Music] [Music] [Music] o creator god lord of all that is accept our gifts and our lives that the world and all people may know your love through our actions in christ holy name we pray amen [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] you know i was thinking back on the pandemic and let me mention a couple of things that mattered then i used to come into the sanctuary nobody was here and i would look into a camera at the back and try to imagine that you were on the other side of the camera one of the things that i started saying then and it still holds is that i love you you are loved here you matter here the other thing that happened during the pandemic that's cool somebody asked me when are we going to go offline we were online before the pandemic we're not going offline during the pandemic we attracted members to our church who live in other cities who live in other states who live in other countries you folks who are out there tuning in you are loved here you matter here this is going to be church going forward coming out of the pandemic it's a good thing god has been good to us and now by the grace of our risen lord and savior jesus christ the love of god the father and the fellowship of the holy spirit be with each one of us both now and forevermore [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: Myers Park United Methodist Church

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Length: 67min 23sec (4043 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 06 2022