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By Rev. Daniel J. Commerford, Senior Pastor Let's pray
Amazing God. We thank you for giving us your eternal love that has been revealed to us in your son Jesus Christ. We thank you that in him, we are assured new life, and that nothing in heaven and nothing on Earth will ever separate us from your love. We thank you that your word continues to speak to us today through your spirit. So as we gather here this morning, we pray that as we hear your word read and proclaim, your spirit would illuminate that reading and draw us closer to your son Jesus Christ. And it's in his name that we pray. Amen. We have two scripture readings for today. The first comes from Psalm 91:1-16. As I read this, listen for God speaking to you. You who live in the shelter of the most high, who abide in the shadow of the almighty, will say to the Lord, "My refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust." Because you have made the Lord your refuge, the most high your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands, they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot. Those who love me, I will deliver. I will protect those who know my name. When they call to me, I will answer them. I will be with them in trouble. I will rescue them and honor them. With long life, I shall satisfy them and show them my salvation. Our Gospel reading comes from the book of Mark 1:14-2. Again, as I read this, listen for God speaking to you. Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God and saying the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe in the good news. As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea. For they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James, son of Zebedee, and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately, he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him. Family, this is the word of the Lord. I'm sure that after last week's fantastic youth Sunday, all of us went home or went to the home of a loved one. I'm sure that many of us watched the Super Bowl. It happened to be the most-watched television event since the landing on the moon, which is pretty amazing. So there are so many of us who watched the Kansas City Chiefs defeat the San Francisco 49ers in overtime. It was a thrilling game. In that victory, there were begins to have conversations of the Chiefs being the new dynasty in the NFL, that Patrick Mahomes is the new Tom Brady. I'm sure then that on Monday, so many of us in this community woke up. There were a lot of Carolina Panther fans and maybe a couple Minnesota Vikings fans who woke up and started to ask, "Why can't we have the same success that the Chiefs are enjoying right now? What is it that is so different between us? We languish in our futility and the success and the glory of the Kansas City Chiefs." But I think in asking that question, I think we are compartmentalizing all that it takes to achieve something so difficult. We might compartmentalize the one game that we watch and all the bounces that went their way and, of course, all the hard work that went into it. But I think that if we were to take this organization in its totality and see all of the decisions that they make, maybe it's not a surprise that they are where they are and we are where we are. Some of the decisions started as long as more than a decade ago when the Chiefs were looking for a head coach. They could have hired a young up-and-comer person to coach them, but instead, they chose to hire a grizzled veteran in Andy Reid who had some success but was also known for not getting quite past the finish line too often. They were decisions that happened maybe five or six years ago when the Kansas City Chiefs had a quarterback who was pretty good, but then they spent their first-round draft pick on this young quarterback from Texas Tech named Patrick Mahomes. Every year between that, they had to make decisions to let players go who were very popular but maybe weren't performing. In all of these decisions, they were risky, they were controversial, they may have been unpopular to people of a certain perspective, and it was difficult making those decisions. They had to weather the criticism in the short run, and now we see where they are, and they are enjoying this success. But I think it's important for us to see the success and to see what took to get there. When we take everything into account, it's no surprise that the Kansas City Chiefs are where they are. In similar fashion, I think that we have a tendency to compartmentalize our faith in Jesus Christ. I think that we like to think about Jesus who walked on this Earth, who revealed God's love to us, who showed us what it means to love God and to love our neighbor, and we do our best to model his love in our own lives. Then we also like to worship Christ who was raised from the dead, the Jesus who conquered death for us, the Jesus who has assured us eternal salvation. Then in the middle, there's this Jesus who died on the cross. As we look at Jesus's life and we see the glory of the Resurrection, we might ask ourselves, how on Earth could those authorities back then look at Jesus and look at what he was teaching and crucify him? How did Jesus end up on the cross? It might be a surprise if we look at everything in its own season, in a vacuum. But in reality, if we look at the totality of Jesus's ministry, we should find that it's no surprise that Jesus wound up dying on the cross. I'm not just talking about God's cosmic plan to reconcile humanity in God, but rather I am talking about this individual Jesus who lived here on Earth. In revealing God's love, he managed to stir up a lot of people who were in leadership. It is through his ministry and the lessons that he taught and the way that he revealed God's love, which was very different than what the status quo was at that time. If we look at all of that in entirety, we shouldn't be that surprised that those people who had the power to make those decisions, instead of following him, decided to crucify him instead. But what does that mean for all of us here today? What do Jesus's teachings mean for us today? That's what we're going to focus on for the entire season of Lent. If you look in your bulletin, you'll see that we are starting a new sermon series titled "Lead Me To the Cross," and we're going to examine some of Jesus's most well-known and popular teachings. Those of us who grew up in Sunday school no doubt have been raised with these teachings being taught to us in Sunday school, but we're going to examine them from the perspective of how they impact us today and how, in doing so, how challenging Jesus's teachings can really be. Just as those same teachings led Jesus to the Cross, how following Christ will similarly lead us in the same direction as we make this journey of Lent together. Today, we begin this series by looking at the very beginning of Jesus's Ministry. In the first chapter of The Gospel of Mark, Jesus begins his ministry after John the Baptist is arrested. He begins by going along the countryside and preaching to the people, saying the good news, preaching the Good News of God. He says, "Look, the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe in this good news." If we look at this passage in its entirety, we'll see that there's this threefold response that Jesus requires of us. First, Jesus says to repent. Repent is this word that means to turn away from our broken, sinful ways, to turn away from our broken, sinful priorities and values, and to turn to Christ. So we repent by turning away. Then we believe in Jesus Christ. As we turn away from our brokenness, we turn to Jesus Christ. Believing in Jesus Christ is to trust that it is Jesus who is God's revelation to the world, and it is through Jesus that we know God's way, that way of love and mercy and grace that is given as abundantly and freely as it is powerfully. Now, how often, though, do we look at this passage and start to think about how can we follow Jesus Christ? What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? We skip right to the belief part. We skip past that important first part that Jesus mentions about the good news of Jesus Christ. We love to believe in Jesus Christ, but how often are we willing to repent of the ways that necessitated Jesus coming in the first place? When I was in seminary, I heard a pastor once preach this in such a simple way, so I'm going to steal it from him. But he preached about the beauty and the offensiveness of the gospel. He preached about the beauty of the good news of Jesus Christ, that there is nothing in heaven, nothing on Earth that will ever separate us from God's love. Af we look in this Psalm that we read today, we see the foundation of God's promises to humanity, that God is a God who is faithful and God is a God who will do anything to bridge that gap between humanity and God. The good news is that this has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. There's a beauty in that, right? It's beautiful that God loved us so much that God sent Jesus to live, to die, and to be raised again for our sake—that we can stand here today not because of anything that we have done or earned, but because of the grace and the love and the mercy of God that has been shown to us in Jesus Christ. That's beautiful. There's a beauty in the good news of the Gospel. But there's also an offensiveness to the gospel as well. Because as Jesus came to proclaim the good news and this beauty, Jesus also came to shine a light on the many ways that we woefully fall short of God's perfect standard of perfection. It's important for us to begin to see our faith and our belief through the lens of repentance. There's a reason that Jesus started with repent, which leads to belief, because genuine belief in God naturally leads us to proclaim the reason that we needed Jesus in the first place. There was a theologian who lived in the 20th century, about 100 years ago. His name was Karl Barth, and I think that his words still ring true today. He says, "Grace is the gift of Christ who exposes the gulf which separates God and humans, and by exposing it, bridges it." Grace is the gift of Christ who exposes the gulf which separates God and humans, and by exposing it, bridges it. Karl Barth was writing about the necessity for us to believe in Jesus Christ. But if we are to genuinely believe who Jesus is, we must also acknowledge who we are. And the good news that Jesus came to proclaim is bad news for us if we are trying to do everything on our own. Because just like the people of Israel and just like the world in Jesus's time – a time that struggled with financial inequity, that struggled with power dynamics that kept the rich and powerful very rich and powerful and kept the poor very destitute – in Jesus's time, that struggled with the role that religion plays in our lives and how to please God, Jesus came to blow all of that up because we as humans didn't get it right. Just like Israel struggled, I think we struggle with that as well. So for us to believe in Jesus Christ means to repent, to acknowledge and confront the same brokenness that has plagued humanity since the moment that Adam and Eve took a bite from that apple. To follow Christ, to believe in the goodness and beauty of the Gospel, is to also embrace the need to repent and return to God. We've talked about the first two elements of following Christ, that he begins his ministry by proclaiming. But then there's that third part – we're called to repent, we're called to believe. That third part: follow. Notice how Jesus didn't come and say, "I'm going to teach you a system of theology and a 10-point list of what to do so that you can be pleasing to God." Rather, after proclaiming the good news, after saying the time is here for God's promise to be fulfilled, he goes and commands his people to follow him. He goes and finds fishermen and ordinary people and says, "Follow me." If you notice, they didn't say, "How about we just incorporate you into our existing life that's so comfortable?" No, his followers dropped everything – their jobs, their family, their home – everything about them that identified them, in order to follow Jesus. This is what we are called to do to this very day. As Jesus calls us to repent, believe, and follow, this ultimately is what the Lenten journey is all about. The Lenten season is this 40-day journey that brings us to the glory of Easter. There is so much to praise God for when we get to that place, but in order to do that, we must follow Jesus by examining ourselves, being open and honest about the areas in our lives where we still fall short, repenting, turning away from those broken areas so that we can trust Jesus to heal us and show us the way, and then following Jesus where he leads. I'll give you a spoiler: the only way to follow Jesus is to follow him to the Cross. There is hope beyond the horizon because I know that Lent can be an arduous, anxiety-filled journey as we start to think about the parts of our lives that we have to let go. But it's important for us, as we think about the season of Lent, to reflect on why we're doing it and where it leads us. I'm sure that throughout all of those years of criticism and risky decisions, through the years of maybe newspapers and reporters critiquing the coaches and the management staff of the Chiefs, I'm sure there were moments of second-guessing as they made sacrifices. But I bet now all of that is worth it because of what they are experiencing now after winning a Super Bowl. The journey of faith is tough because it requires us to die to ourselves. It requires us to admit that we don't have it figured out on our own and that we desperately need Christ to heal us, save us, and show us the way. But when we do, Christ leads us to something that's so much better than anything we can create on our own. So over the next few weeks as we make this season of Lent and journey through it, we're going to see how some of Jesus's teachings challenged those of his contemporaries when he lived. We're going to examine how it might challenge us today. But in doing so, my prayer is that we will find the beauty of the gospel. As we repent, believe, and follow, may we find this good news of God's love that is as deep, as wide, as powerful, and as available as it is to all of us. May we trust in that love and follow Christ even when he takes us to the Cross, continuing to follow him until the day that Christ comes again. To God be all glory, honor, and praise. Amen.
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By Alvord Apau-Kese, Class of 2024 Psalm 50:1-6
The Mighty One, God the Lord, speaks and summons the Earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Out of Zion, the Perfection of beauty, God shines forth. Our God comes and does not keep silence. Before Him is a devouring fire and a mighty tempest all around Him. He calls to the heavens above and to the Earth that He may judge His people. "Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice. The heavens declare His righteousness, for God Himself is Judge." This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Mark 9:2-9 After six days, Jesus took Peter, James, and John with Him and led them up a high mountain where they were all alone. There, He was transfigured before them; His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there before them appeared Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." He did not know what to say; they were so frightened. Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: "This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to Him!" Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Hello, how's everyone doing today? My name is Alvord Apau-Kese; I'm a senior at Highland School of Technology. I would like to thank everyone for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today. Today, I'm going to speak on how prayer has affected my life in a positive way. The most recent example I can think of is this morning. I was praying that I'd be able to come up here and not be awkward and speak to everyone. So, I'm hoping that works out positively; we'll see at the end. My main three points that I want to speak on are my football career, my schooling career, and my Eagle Scout that I recently achieved. I'll start with my schooling. I would find myself praying every morning before I went to school. I remember not being the most serious student going through Middle School. When I got into Highland, my parents asked me, "Albert, do you want to go to Highland?" Being who I am, I knew Highland had a very high academic reputation, so I was pretty scared and said no. But my parents did what would be best for me and applied for me anyway. I ended up at Highland, and every day my freshman year, I prayed that I'd be able to get through. My first day, I asked the teacher if Highland's reputation is as bad as it sounds. She said yes, which made me want to do better and reach those expectations. I believe that prayer was what was able to get me to where I am today. I am coming onto my senior year, having taken my academics incredibly seriously, and I've done nothing but the best for myself academically. Football—Highland's football team is not the greatest team in Gaston County. I can vouch; I went 0-30 in my high school career, never won a high school game in my entire life. There were a lot of trials and tribulations. It was tough, but prayer is what was able to get me to get up after that big hit, get up after that big run, and do what I needed to do on and off the field. I had an event happen to me that truly needed prayer. A teammate of mine passed away last February, and that was a really rough moment for me. I don't think I would have been able to get through it without praying to God, asking for help, and seeing if He'd be able to help me out mentally. Our entire team came up with a tradition to gather around the number two on the field at the 20-yard line pregame and do a team prayer. That's my most prominent example, my favorite one to bring up because that was the roughest one that I've ever had to go through. The last example, and this one might be the longest, is my Eagle Scout. I was in Boy Scouts for about ten years. It's been a long road. I remember when I first started, a neighbor worked at the Boy Scout shop down the road. He knocked on our door, and I saw the Boy Scout bags. My first thought was, "Oh, he's selling us popcorn. I'm going to get some popcorn today." He came in the house, and as soon as I looked in the bags, my heart dropped. I saw two Boy Scout uniforms for my brother and me, and I knew that this was happening in that moment. I was going to be a Boy Scout. It was a lot; I had to give up Tuesdays, things I wanted to do with my friends, but I couldn't because of camping trips, youth Sundays, and a lot of other Boy Scout activities. Going into my first day, a common trend, I prayed. I prayed that I'd be able to go through this journey because I knew it was a big journey. Boy Scouts is not just a one-day thing; it usually takes multiple years to do. Getting my Eagle Scout was one of the scariest things that I've had to do because I wasn't sure if I was even going to be able to reach it. I got my Life rank around the Covid-19 year, which really did stunt everything. It made everything very tough, but it was about how I handled it and how God helped me get back on my feet. I was persistent, able to get the project out of the way after a few months. I had to help my brother do his first, but we ended up getting to mine. We both got our Eagle Scouts, and I got a few Palms as well because I had a good amount of merit badges. The common theme here is that prayer has helped me with each and every single one of these things. Everyone being here today shows me how seriously this congregation takes their faith and how everyone here has a great relationship with God. I'm working on my relationship with God, getting it to a place where I can be proud and rely on God for many things. So, I want to leave everyone with that thought and thank everyone for allowing me to speak here. Thank you. By Rev. Daniel J. Commerford, Senior Pastor Let's pray.
Loving God. We thank you for your son Jesus Christ. We thank you that in him we have this joy that we can embrace and rely upon—a joy that we can share with others. We thank you that you have revealed him to us as your Word, and that even today we can gather and hear your Word read and proclaimed. We know that your Spirit continues to transform us, so we pray for that today through the gospel that is read, through the message that is preached, through the music that is sung, and the prayers that are prayed. May you take all of that and use it to help us grow closer to you, so that we can share your joy with others. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. We have two passages for today. The first comes from Psalm 96:1-6. As I read this, listen for God's speaking to you: "Oh, sing to the Lord a new song! Sing to the Lord, all the Earth. Sing to the Lord, bless his name. Tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples. For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised; he is to be revered above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Honor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary." Our New Testament passage comes from the book of Philippians 4:15-23. Again, listen for God speaking to you: "You Philippians indeed know that in the early days of the Gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving except you alone. For even then, when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me help for my needs more than once. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the profit that accumulates to your account. I have been paid in full and have more than enough. I am fully satisfied now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts that you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To God and Father be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The friends who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you, especially those of the Emperor's household. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit." Family, this is the word of the Lord. This morning's sermon is the second message that I have delivered this week. On Friday, I was very honored to give the eulogy at my grandfather's funeral. I know I've been talking about it a lot, but one of the reasons I talk about it so much is that my grandfather, you didn't know him, but he was this giant in life physically; he played football for Texas Tech. He grew to be a giant in the way he lived his life—owned his own business, very successful in taking care of people, a leader in his church. But I got to see another side of him, and I wanted to let people know about this other side. As big as he was in public, he was just as kind, tender, and generous in person. Always generous with his time with us, always made time for us, even though he was busy. He was generous with his heart. As big and tough as he was, he was also very vulnerable. Later in life, I learned how generous he was with his finances. He gave a lot of his blessings away to help those less fortunate than him. I wanted everyone to know about my grandfather and how, from what I saw, his faith in Christ led him to have this capacity to be so big and bold in his pursuits, but also big and bold in his generosity with others. Then something really amazing happened after the service and at the reception. I heard from so many facets of his life that I didn't really know about. I heard from people with whom he worked, people whom he helped when they were younger, before I was born. Every single person who got up and spoke said the same thing—that he was so generous to them, kind, and left a lasting impact. People traveled from all across the country to attend this service and say these words that, decades later, my grandfather's generosity impacted them in a way that still continues with them today. Forgive me; I'm still processing all this a little bit, but I couldn't help but think about that as I wrote my sermon yesterday. As we talk about the end of the book of Philippians, Paul is writing his parting words to the Philippian church. We have been following this journey as Paul wrote this letter to the Philippians. There's something I love about Paul's letters. In all of his letters, he's responding to a specific circumstance happening at that time. Often, he's responding to crises in the church, crises in either the congregations he has helped guide or crises in the church as a whole, trying to figure out who Jesus was. They didn't have a Bible to guide them, so a lot of what we believe comes from Paul's writings. He writes beautifully about who Jesus was on Earth, what he did, and how his death and resurrection impact us. That's helped shape who we are as a church. At the end of every letter, Paul always pivots to what was most important to him—relationships. What do we do with the faith and the gift of Jesus Christ that God has given us? Paul could have used that time to solidify his arguments, do a recap, solidify his authority, give guidance and leadership to the church. But in every letter, he always switches at the very end to the relationships in those churches. We see this at the end of Philippians. He's written so much about joy, how to attain and hold on to joy. He makes this pivot at the end of Chapter 4. He thanks the church for their lasting impact of generosity. As Mary said in the children's sermon. Paul thanks the church in Philippi for all the ways their generosity impacted him and continues to have a lasting impact. “Thank you for giving me a place to stay when I'm visiting. Thank you for providing funds because I can't do this and pay for my own living on my own. Thank you for everything you've provided. It continues to make an impact on me today.” He thanks them for their generosity, acknowledges how it continues to impact him, and encourages them to continue to be generous with others. “Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The friends who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you, especially those of the Emperor's household. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.” He reminds them of the impact they make when they embrace the joy of Jesus Christ and reminds us that, at the end of everything, this gift of Jesus Christ is meant to be shared generously with others. As much as joy is meant to be given to us, God calls us to be a joy for the world. When we embrace the abundant love of Jesus Christ and allow it to permeate every facet of our lives, we start to see the world differently. We see opportunities to be generous with our joy, treating others as children of God, loving them abundantly and fiercely. Boldly, we can be generous with our finances, not viewing them with scarcity but as an opportunity to share and make a difference. As we conclude this series, Joy to the World, my hope is that we have reflected on the joy in our lives. A few weeks ago, we sang, "Joy to the world for the Lord has come." Even in this dark, cold season, we have the opportunity for joy. My prayer is that we can be a people who embrace, rely on, and trust in that joy. May we also be a people who share that joy, making a lasting impact in our relationships and our world. To God be all glory and honor and praise. Amen. |
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