Worship on the Fourth Sunday of Lent
10:00 am 10 March 2024
Online & Onsite (Mixed Presence) Gathering as a Worshipping Community
Led by the Rev Brad Childs
Music director: Binu Kapadia Vocalist: Linda Farrah-Basford
Elder: Jane de Caen
We gather to worship God
Music prelude
Greeting
L: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
P: and also with you.
Lighting of the Christ candle
Welcome and announcements
Silent preparation for worship
Call to Worship
L: On this fourth Sunday of Lent, we overhear a nighttime conversation between Jesus and a Pharisee named Nicodemus
P: Jesus says we must be born anew and born of the Spirit. With Nicodemus we ask, “How can these things be?”
L: But maybe it’s not all about understanding these mysteries. Maybe it’s about hearing, believing and sharing the good news with our words and our actions.
P: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
Opening praise: Revelation song
Prayers of approach and confession
Gracious God, Great and wonderful are your works!
Your steadfast love is everlasting.
Where there is darkness, you bring light.
Where there is sadness, you speak words of hope.
Where there is despair, you bring new possibilities.
You have come among us in Christ Jesus to save us, bringing healing for the sick, and forgiveness for the sinner.
In this time of worship, stir us with your Spirit, O God.
Awaken our joy and reverence in our songs and our silence, in our prayers and praises, for you are our God, here and everywhere, now and always. Amen.
Merciful God, We confess that we often take your acceptance of us for granted.
We are careless in our relationships, focused on our own needs and desires.
The news distracts us, and we put opinion above your expectations of us.
Forgive us.
Renew our understanding of your purposes and our place within them, so we may serve you more faithfully, day by day. Amen.
Response: I waited, I waited on you, Lord
Assurance of God’s love
Friends in Christ, by grace we have been saved through faith. This is not our doing but God’s gift to us. Know that God forgives you and forgive one another. So may the peace of Christ be with you.
We listen for the voice of God
Children’s time
Response: Jesus, we are gathered (514)
Story
I have a verse for you and this is from The Message so it’s not quite a translation. But this is Eugene Peterson’s take on Matthew 23.
Okay, religious fashion show. Now Jesus turned his address to the disciples along with the crowd that had gathered with him. The religious scholars and the Pharisees are competent teachers in God’s law. And you won’t go astray in following their teachings and according to Moses.
But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don’t live it. They don’t take into account the heart and they don’t live out their behavior.
It’s all spit and polish veneer.
Now I’m gonna tell you a little story.
I don’t know if it will make much sense, but there is a guy. I probably shouldn’t say his name, but I’m going to do that anyway. So, if the family of John Ferrier is watching, take no offense.
John Ferrier actually passed away a little while ago, but he used to be kind of famous in this place called Moose Jaw.
Have you ever heard of Moose Jaw? No? It’s sort of like Red Deer, I guess, kind of outside of a larger city. Well, it’s fairly large, I would say 80,000 people or something?
John Ferrier did pretty much every funeral in the city. He did it least one a week. Every week since I knew him, he never showed up for a meeting because he had a funeral.
He also did like a lot of the weddings in town.
I don’t know what it was but everybody went to John Ferrier and asked him to do weddings and funerals – important things.
He had a church of about 15 people. But He also had an entire community because he drove around and every day had lunch with somebody and breakfast with somebody.
He was always talking to people and at his funeral l500 people showed up. It was wild.
Now John Ferrier was maybe not the most interesting preacher.
Maybe I’m not either, I don’t know.
He had a “voice” – a really deep bass voice..
And he had this kind of odd preaching style. I just couldn’t get into it. Most people couldn’t. But everybody loved this guy. Everybody loved him.
Here’s the thing. And this quote came from a red dragon
It says, “If you practice what you preach, then you don’t have to preach very loud.”
John Ferrier was a guy who really practiced what he preached. And everybody loved him and they knew he loved God because of how he loved them.
In the story about the Pharisees, Jesus says people might know what they’re talking about but don’t follow them because they don’t live it.
They say. “Say what you mean, mean what you do.”
”Then Jesus said to the crowd and to the disciples, the teachers of the law, and the Pharisees: Sit in Moses’ seat and you should obey them and all that they tell you to do with Moses but do not do what they do for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders but do not carry loads themselves.”
In life. It’s better to follow this Jesus fellow who says, practice what you preach. And when you preach a sermon of love, it doesn’t matter how loud it is or how good it is. People know.
Prayer
Our God, we thank you for those people in our lives who are like the John Ferrier.
We thank you for the parents and grandparents and family members and brothers and sisters and friends and teachers.
We thank you for all of these leaders in our lives that help us to actually live out the lives that we want to.
And so God, we praise you today for the John Ferriers in our lives who actually walk the walk that Jesus told us to walk.
The Lord’s Prayer (535)
Transition music
Song: Sometimes a healing word (768)
Today’s Message
Scripture reading: John 3:14-21
Response: Jesus, remember me
Message: Bobby’s Valentine
In the 1970s; in the state of Indiana – it was a different time. Bobby was a “special-educatipn” boy. He was just testing high enough to remain in a regular classroom with his classmates, but he was still noticeably atypical in some fashion. Bobby was the constant butt of jokes from the other kids, but he never seemed to mind. Every day, as the neighbourhood kids walked home from school, Bobby’s mother would look out the window to see them all laughing and joking together – all except Bobby. He was always walking behind the others, all alone. It was obvious that the other children felt uncomfortable around Bobby and shunned him.
One day Bobby burst into the kitchen after school. “Mom, guess what?” he said. “Valentine’s Day is two weeks away, and our teacher said we could make valentines and give them to the other kids in our class!”
His mother’s heart sank as she pictured yet another opportunity for Bobby to be excluded. “Mom,” said Bobby, “I’m going to make a valentine for every person in my class!”
“That is genuinely nice, Bobby” his mother answered (fighting back the tears) and picturing Bobby’s disappointment in getting no cards in return.
Over the next two weeks, Bobby worked every single afternoon on those valentines. He used red paper, blue markers, and glitter. He spent hours making each one exactly right. They were truly labours of love.
When the big day finally came, he was so excited about taking his valentines to school that he could not even eat his breakfast. But he was also a little worried. “I hope I didn’t forget anybody,” he said as he dashed off to school. He ran out the door with perfect excitement leaving the door still open behind him.
Bobby’s mother made a fresh batch of his favourite cookies and prepared herself to comfort her son when he returned home broken-hearted from the Valentine’s exchange. She knew how disappointed he would be with the response he got from the other children.
That afternoon, as per usual, Bobby’s mother watched as the same cluster of neighborhood kids walked home together once again. A half block behind them, as was always the case, was little Bobby all alone.
John 3:16, which was read here today, is perhaps the single most well-known verse in all the Bible. When I was three years old, I was in a church program called A.W.A.N. A. (my group was called the “Cubbies”). A.W.A.N.A. is sort of like Boy Scouts for conservative Christians. It was really big in the Midwest United States when I was a kid. Once a week about one hundred of us kids (of all ages – from 2 to 20) would gather in my church’s gymnasium together for A.W.A.N.A. We wore tan shirts resembling military apparel, tan shorts, and tall socks and we wore red neckerchiefs for some unknown and terrible reason (I hated wearing that thing). We played games and we memorized bible verses for badges that we sewed onto a sash. And the very first verse I ever memorized for my first badge was John 3:16.
John 3:16 says, (in King James English of course) “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son, so that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have life everlasting.”
The coach told me what it meant. He said, “Jesus loves you so much that he was willing to die on the cross for your sins.”
I bet many people in this room have had a similar kind of experience. And very likely it was a warm and good moment.
Sometimes when we look back on important people in our lives it is easy to see them with rose-colored glasses. Well, I am not going to do that.
The coach was telling me the truth. And I still believe what he said, today. Jesus loves me so much that he was willing to die on the cross for my sins. I believe that – with all my heart. That is a true statement. The coach was telling the truth. But… even though that is true, that’s not what John 3:16 is about at all.
Rollen Frederick Stewart is famous. He is the guy everyone knows and yet nobody knows they know him. He was born February 19, 1944, and is also known as the Rainbow Man. Rollen was a fixture in the American sports culture in the seventies and eighties.
Rollen first’s major appearance was at the 1977 NBSA Finals. His presence was obvious, and the film crews had to desperately try to avoid capturing him but ultimately found it impossible. Rollen had the best seats in the house: on the 50-yard line, behind the goalposts, underneath the basket – he was always there, and he always got on T.V. And was always noticed. Quite frankly he was impossible to miss. Rollen wore a Rainbow afro wig and did something thousands of people now copy. He held up a huge sign. It read simply this “John 3:16”.
Although his life took a tragic turn in later years, Rollen Stewart had just become a born-again Christian and was determined to “get the message out” via television. In a way, he was absolutely brilliant. He found a way to capture free advertising for every church within the airwaves and at some of the most televised events in the world. He spent a small fortune getting the best seats at every sporting event he could. People all over the globe picked up bibles to find out what just what this “John 3:16” was all about. In his own words, Rollen just wanted people to know “that Jesus Christ had died for their sins”. True.
Today Rollen is an even more controversial figure and the subject of a documentary. It is a sad, sad story. But he was a man with a mission. He was a person who fought to see the message of Christ spread throughout the world.
The problem is… that just like my old AWANA coach, Rollen too was right but also wrong.
See Rollen convinced an entire generation of people that John 3:16 (the most quoted verse in all the bible) is about Jesus Christ dying on the cross for our sins. But it is not.
Now to be abundantly clear once more – I believe that Christ did die on the cross for our sins. But again, just like with my coach, that’s still not what John 3:16 is about. It’s true but that is not at all what that verse is about.
AND Just think about it for a moment and you’ll see.
John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believeth in him shall not perish but have life eternally.”
John does not say, “For God so loved the world that Jesus died on the cross for our sins.”
He says, “For God [THE FATHER] loved the world (all of us and all creation) so much that He [THE FATHER] gave His only begotten son.”
It is not Jesus giving of his life that John is talking about – it is about God (the Father) giving up His son.
What’s more, this is John 3:16… 3:16… As in John’s gospel in the 3rd chapter and the 16th verse… It IS NOT John chapter 19 vs 16.
The third chapter is at the beginning of John’s gospel.
It is not the crucifixion John is talking about. The crucifixion comes at the END of John. Chapter 19 not 3!
This verse is not about Jesus dying on the cross. It is about the birth of Jesus. It’s not the death of Jesus. It is the incarnation of Jesus that John is talking about.
It is not his death.
It is chapter 3. It is about his birth.
See God’s gift is not just that Jesus died on the cross. That is just one part of his gift. God’s gift is that He gave His only begotten son (not just to die) But to Live; to be human: to be born, to skin knees, to have to learn how to read, and dress himself, to play with and be made fun of by other children (AS ALL ARE), to be an awkward teen, to love, to live, to go to a wedding… To lose people you care about, to attend a funeral, to make friends, feel rejection and pain, to go through EVERYTHING WE DO, to cry… to experience it all… to give up the perfection of heaven, for the weakness and the frailty of humanity.
That is what God gave the son for.
For John this is astonishing. This is amazing. God, the maker of heaven and earth would give up everything (untold power and joy) to be a mere human being; with us and for us. It is the idea that God loved the world so much that nothing would be held back. He gave even of himself.
For a first-century Jewish writer like John, this was unfathomable.
In the Old Testament God appeared a few times throughout history, to a select and incredibly special and exceedingly small group of people. So for example, the Bible might say, “And the Spirit rested upon him for a time before leaving.” To have the Holy Spirit (God’s presence) even for just a moment was something that happened to David or Abraham or Moses or Elijiah but that’s really about it.
But John says that is not what is happening here. And not just for a moment for a few special people but for a lifetime and everyone. In John 3:16 John says that God gave everything he had, for us. And it is not just some lucky or some extraordinarily Holy person, it is for the entire world… everybody; everywhere. Everyone, no strings, no requirements, he just came… for all.
Back in Indiana with Bobby’s mother looking out the window at her son lagging behind the other kids, Bobby’s mother turned away from the window in tears and placed a plate of cookies on the table hoping to console her son. Much to her surprise, Bobby came through the door with a huge smile on his face. “What is it, Bobby?” she asked. “How did it go?”
With a shout of pure joy, Bobby said, ran and hugged her. “Guess what Mom!… I did not forget a single kid!”
Booby was so focused on giving that he did not even consider the response he would get. Being loved back was not even on the radar. He was so concerned about others that he was blind to the fact that he was being slighted. Bobby had a gift to bring for everyone and that is all that mattered.
Sometimes when we give, our motives seem pure, but we would still feel rejected if we did not receive something in return. And of course, there is nothing wrong with wanting a thank you (do not get me wrong). But Bobby gave… And Jesus gave… even more than that.
Jesus gave his life for us knowing that, as (the Gospel writer) John says, many “would not receive him.” He became like us… For us; expecting nothing. That’s agape, God’s love. It’s unconditional, unselfish, and given with no strings attached.
That is the gift that God gave to the world. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have life everlasting.” Amen. (Bobby’s Valentines pg 47 H.I.F.Y.T. 4 Wayne Rice)
Song: O love that wilt not let me go (209)
We respond to serve God: Our time of giving
Reflection on giving: The season of Lent leads us closer and closer to the Cross. As we contemplate Jesus lifted up for our sakes, consider what the gift of his mercy and grace means for you. Let your offering express your thanksgiving for such an amazing gift from God.
Prayer of gratitude and for others and ourselves
Lord Jesus, you gave so much without counting the cost. Bless these gifts with your generous love. Use them to bless the world with the same hope and healing we have found in you. And let us not count the cost until we too have given all we can for your sake.
Gracious God, you have called together a people to be the church of Jesus Christ.
Keep our minds and hearts open to your Word and your ways, so that the world may see in us compassion and wisdom in action.
May our lives lead others to believe you are love and live by your truth.
God in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
Creator God, you made all things and called them good.
Thank you for the wonders of the world that surround us and the promise of new life stirring in burrows and seed beds around us.
We pray for the earth in its vulnerability, staggering under the demands of human needs and expectations.
May your planet earth be held in reverence by all peoples.
Guide us in our country and our community to use its resources wisely and respect its fragile balance between life and death.
God in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
Christ, Prince of peace, thank you for your commitment to mercy and forgiveness which overcome our desires for revenge.
Speak to the hearts of peoples everywhere and to those who occupy places of power and influence in every land.
Teach us how to seek peace on earth together.
Especially this week we remember the regions in conflict and pray that a just resolution to conflict will soon prevail for the sake of the vulnerable.
Overcome the fear, greed, violence or vanity that turn neighbour against neighbour and nation against nation.
May all who claim your name be known as makers of the peace.
God in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
Christ, healer of hearts and hopes, you desire health and wholeness for each one of us, thank you for times of wellbeing, whether measured in minutes or months.
We pray that lives caught up in the economic pressures of these times may find enough to sustain them day by day and hope for more generous future.
Grant rest and renewal to all who are broken in body or spirit and bring comfort to those who ache with loss or anxiety.
In silence we lift before you the names of those on our hearts today…….
(Keep silence for 15-20 seconds)
God in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
Holy Spirit, source of wisdom and courage, embrace your church with hope this day that we may live faithfully, encouraging each other by the commitment we have witnessed in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Song: Guide me, O thou great Redeemer (651)
Sending out with God’s blessing
As we continue our Lenten journey, remember the words from Ephesians: “Live as children of light. The fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true.” So may the light of God’s love surround you, t he light of Christ’s mercy renew you, and the light of the Spirit’s wisdom guide you, through this day and every day to come.
Response: Benediction
Music postlude
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Numbers in brackets after a song/hymn indicate that it is from the 1997 Book of Praise of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Those and other songs are being used in accordance with the specifications of Dayspring’s licensing with One Licence (3095377) and CLC (A735555).
The Rev. Brad Childs retains the copyright (© 2024) on all original material in this service. As far as Brad Childs is aware, all of the material that has not been attributed to others is his own creation or is in the public domain. Unacknowledged use of copyrighted material is unintentional and will be corrected immediately upon notification being received.