Worship on the Fifth Sunday of Easter
10:00 am May 18, 2025
Minister: Rev. Brad Childs Music Director: Binu Kapadia
Vocalists: Peter and Cheryl Sheridan Children’s Time: Lynn Vaughan
Welcoming Elder: Shirley Simpson
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
Preparation for worship
Call to worship:
L: O praise the name of the Lord, who reveals new visions to His people
P: We gather to celebrate the freedom of faith and the courage to follow.
L: As Peter learned to embrace change, let us be open to God’s guidance.
P: In humility and hope, we come to worship our ever-loving Lord.
Opening praise: Revelation song
Prayers of humble confession
Holy One, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we experience you,
the blessed Trinity, ever three and ever one.
As God the Parent, you bless us with creative hope and new possibility.
As God the Son, you open the doors of your realm for us and welcome us into abundant life.
As God the Holy Spirit, your pour your gifts upon us so that we might know your love in deep and transformative ways.
We praise you for the many ways you touch our lives and draw us closer to you.
As we gather here in your mystery and majesty, fill us with the vision of your glory, that we may always serve and honour your holy name, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, creating, redeeming and renewing us as one God,
now and forever.
God of mercy and majesty, you are slow to anger and swift to forgive.
You have shown us the depth of your love, and yet we are reluctant to love others even a little.
You have shown us compassion and forgiveness, and yet we walk away from one another without concern.
You show us the way of service, and yet we put up barriers and keep your gifts for ourselves.
When looking out at the world and ask why is this, this way, and that, that way, and we blame you for the things humans do to one another. And rarely do we remember that you put us here to change the world for the better.
Forgive us, O Lord.
Create in us new hearts.
In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
Response: Glory, glory hallelujah
Assurance of God’s love
God is ready to forgive for God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in unswerving love.
In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.
Be at peace with God, with yourself and with one another through the grace and comfort of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
We listen for the voice of God
Song: Jesus, we are gathered (514)
Children’s Time
Do you like eggs? There are so many different ways to fix eggs, how do you like yours – fried, scrambled, hard boiled? You can make an omelet or a breakfast burrito. You can eat them by themselves or mix them with chicken or tuna to make sandwiches. Eggs are also used to make delicious treats such as cookies, cakes, and pies.
Did you know that some eggs are white and some eggs are brown? Have you ever wondered why? Well, the answer is quite simple: chickens with white feathers lay white eggs and chickens with reddish feathers lay brown eggs. Is there any difference in white eggs and brown eggs? Well, yes, white eggs are white and brown eggs are brown.
“What about on the inside?” you may ask. Well, let’s see. (break a brown egg and a white egg into a clear glass bowl.) Can you see any difference? No. On the inside, they look just the same. It is also interesting to note that the colour of the shell has nothing to do with an egg’s quality, nutritional value, or flavour. On the inside, all eggs are the same.
You know, that is true of people, too. Some people may be light-skinned and have blond hair and blue eyes. Others may be dark-skinned and have brown hair and brown eyes. On the outside, they may look different, but on the inside, they are the same. WE are all the same!
Simon Peter was one of Jesus’ disciples. He was a Jew, and he believed that God sent Jesus only for the Jews. So one day, God gave Peter a vision that showed him that He created all people and that He loved them all the same. After God showed him that, Peter said, “I now realize that God does not show partiality. He accepts people from every nation and all over the world who want to be part of His family.” God also showed Peter that he must “tell the good news that Jesus is the Lord of all and that everyone who believes in him will be forgiven of their sins.”
There is an old-time church song called “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” It reminds us that Jesus loves everyone the same, no matter what they look like on the outside. And WE are also meant to love all of God’s children, young and old, the same. Do we do that? I hope so!
Prayer: Heavenly Father, help us to love others as you do – treating everyone with the same respect. Help us to tell the good news that Jesus is Lord of all and that everyone who believes in him has forgiveness in his name. Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer (535)
Song: In the presence of your people (427)
Scripture reading: Acts 11: 1-18
Response: Alleluia, alleluia, give thanks to the risen Lord
Message: The Next 2000 Years
Today, I won’t discuss the verses we’ve just read. At least not exactly. Instead I want to say that I was struck by the statement about the Holy Spirit being poured out on Peter and how it changed his entire life. And I just thought… You know, Presbyterians do a good job of talking about the Father, and we do good theological work on the person of Jesus. But other than saying “I believe in the Holy Spirit” when we recite the Apostles Creed, we don’t tend to talk about the Spirit much. That’s a problem.
It’s been said that the Father received all the glory for the first 2000 years (The Hebrew Bible and Temple), the Son received the glory for the following 2000 years (The New Testament and Church), and it’s the Spirit who will receive the glory for the next 2000 years (The Word written on our hearts and lived out).
Given the massive impact of Pentecostals and charismatic churches in Africa, Asia and South America, I think that’s probably true. So, let’s talk about the Holy Spirit today because we don’t do that often enough.
Living Faith (one of just three Standards of Belief we have in the Presbyterian Church) says this:
God the Holy Spirit 4.1
The Holy Spirit is God with Us 4.1.1
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the triune God and is One with the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit is the Lord and Giver of Life, the Renewer and Helper of God’s people. By the Spirit, God is present in the world, the source of all goodness and justice. By the Spirit, God convincts the world of sin and testifies to the truth of Christ. By the Spirit, Christ is with his church.
4.2 The Holy Spirit Enables People to Believe
4.2.1 The Spirit enables people to receive the good news of Christ, to repent of their sins, and to be adopted as children of God. As we hear and respond to the Gospel, we freely turn to Christ. When we have turned and repented, we recognize that the Spirit enabled us to believe.
4.2.2 The Holy Spirit accompanies us on our journey of faith. We may not always be sure of this presence. Yet God’s Spirit is with us, sometimes gently, sometimes powerfully, guiding us in the midst of life, our comfort and our help. The Christian life is a pilgrimage: it begins continues, and ends in God.
4.3 The Holy Spirit Forms and Equips the Church
4.3.1 By the Spirit, Christ calls the church into being and unites us to himself and to each other. The Holy Spirit is in all who know Christ.
4.3.2 The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. We pray as a church to be guided into truth, knowing that such truth may disturb and judge us.
4.3.3 The presence of the Holy Spirit is seen in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, loyalty, gentleness, and self-control.
4.3.4 The Spirit blesses us with various gifts. We seek to discover those gifts and to use them for our Lord. Faithful, loving service is a sign that the Spirit is present. The presence of the Spirit is evident where people are made whole, encouraged, and enabled to grow in Christ.
4.3.5 Come, Holy Spirit
What do we really know about the “still small voice”?
What the Hebrew Bible calls most often the “Spirit of Elohim” is called in the Talmud and in Midrash “Spirit of the Holy” (ruacḥ ha-Kodesh). But to be honest, it’s often hard to tell what exactly is being talked about.
In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would come and rest on people for a time, but was said to come and go. There is also the reality that while Ruach ha-Kodesh is given personhood, most Jewish readers thought of the Spirit more like the acting hand of God than something more unique, as presented in the New Testament much more clearly. In certain places, although the Ruach ha-Kodesh may be named instead of the Father, it was sometimes (even by Jewish readers) understood as being something distinct; and, like everything earthly that comes from heaven, the Ruach ha-Kodesh is composed of light and fire whenever an appearance is made.
In Gen.1:2, God’s spirit hovered over the formless matter, thereby making Creation possible. But we don’t usually think of the Spirit as co-creator, do we?
The word (or Title; or Name) itself, “Ruach,” literally means Wind or Breath. The Spirit is the Breath of God. But it’s a Breath, with its own will.
One of the most interesting features of God’s breath is that He(?) sometimes speaks with a feminine voice and other times, speaks with a masculine voice. In fact, in Proverbs, the Spirit is depicted under the Title “Lady Wisdom.” In the end, the Holy Spirit really has no gender (“for God is Spirit”), but it’s interesting nevertheless and, for some reason, doesn’t seem to garner much attention.
In fact, the spirit rarely gets any attention at all, really.
We say we are trinitarian and that God is One but in Three Persons. But that’s about all we say. We very rarely talk about the Holy Spirit, especially in non-Pentecostal or non-charismatic churches.
This isn’t entirely a new problem.
The Apostles Creed has this huge, detailed section about Jesus’ birth, life, teaching, death, deity, and resurrection, and then about the Spirit, which says simply, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” And then that’s it.
The Nicene Creed is better. It says, “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
Who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,
Who has spoken through the prophets?”
The Reformed Confessions do it a lot better: The Belgic Confession has 22 references to the Spirit, and the Second Helvetic Confession of Reformed Theology has 35 references to the Spirit. But how many of you have copies of the Second Helvetic Confession on your bedside stand? I sure don’t.
In the end, it seems like there is a whole person of the Trinity that we never really acknowledge unless it happens to be Pentecost Sunday.
So, let’s remedy that a bit today.
Luke 1:35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will be upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So, the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. (It is the Holy Spirit that is involved in the conception of Jesus.)
Okay, so that’s probably one you know.
How about this one?
In 1 Corinthians 2:10-11, it says, 10 These are the things God has revealed to us by His Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. (In other words, we know nothing about God, except through what the Spirit tells us.)
I really like Psalm 139:7-10. It says,
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
If I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 Even there your hand will guide me,
Your right hand will hold me fast.
There is no way to escape the Spirit of God.
How about something terrifying? Did you know the bible says that there is a sin people can commit that God will never forgive? Well, well, well…
Let’s take out those pew Bibles and turn to Matthew 12:30-32.
It says, 30 ‘Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. 31 And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
So, what is this Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit that is the unforgivable sin? Well, that’s your homework for the week. You’re disciples of Jesus. You tell me.
Personally, I wouldn’t spend too much time being afraid. After all, the Holy Spirit enters and establishes a new relationship with us and the Father, but this is only the beginning of His work in us. The Holy Spirit marks us as belonging to God. Eph. 1:13-14 says, He is our seal of salvation so that God can see from Heaven and know us to be His sons and daughters. He becomes our direct line, through Jesus, to the Father. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin and the need for righteousness in our lives. The Spirit makes us better people.
JOHN 16:8 says, 8 When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: He teaches us to obey the Lord and to trust Him to direct our every step, and to put all our cares on Him, for He is greater than any problem. Through the Spirit, we learn to develop greater reliance on the Lord, and less on human wisdom, or strength, or our own abilities.
The Holy Spirit is also called the Spirit of Grace (Heb. 10:29), Spirit of Truth (John 14:17), Spirit of Wisdom and Knowledge (Isa 11:2), Spirit of Glory (1 Peter 4:14) and Counselor (John 16:7). As well as advocate in the book of Acts and is described as if He is our lawyer arguing our case before the Father when we sin.
He is unique and divine according to Acts 5:3-4, Eternal and not created according to Heb. 9:14, omnipresent according to Ps 139:7 and omniscient as it says in John 14:26.
The Holy Spirit is a unique person apart from the Father and Son who, according to Scriptures, has his own Knowledge (Rom. 8:27), has her own will (1 Cor. 12:11) and has feelings and emotions (Matthew 3:16-17). In fact, the Holy Spirit is even described as feeling pain when we sin.
Have you ever noticed that in creation it does not say, “Now I will create.” Instead, it says, “Let US create man in OUR image”. Or have you ever noticed that it is the Holy Spirit that is hovering over the waters of the deep during creation and not the Father? The Holy Spirit is there at the very beginning (in the very first line in our bibles in Gen 1:1), and He is also there in the final line of our Bibles at the end of Revelation. He is, together with the Church, calling out to Jesus, “Come.”
In John 16:8, it says that the Holy Spirit acts as our conscience and convicts us of sin. He is also the one who counsels or speaks to our inner being in times of pain (John 14:16-17). He is the one who brings us an assurance of our salvation (Rom 8:15) and teaches us through the written word (1 Cor. 2:13). And She does that through the word She inspired to be written in the first place (2 Tim 3:16-17).
Followers of Jesus are called to be guided by the Spirit and to walk in His ways (Gal. 5:16; 26).
The Holy Spirit acted in the resurrection of Jesus (1 Peter 3:18), speaks to our hearts and calls us to acts of service (Acts 13:4) and gifts us with spiritual gifts to do those good works (1 Cor 12:7-11).
It was the spirit who filled Peter and informed him in our reading that the old law has been fulfilled. He informs us that all those dietary laws and ceremonial laws of the Old Testament have served their purpose – which is why we don’t have to avoid shell fish and pork – Peter get up kill and eat for I have made them clean.
The Spirit seals the salvation of the elect who will then someday enter into the heavenly kingdom (Eph 1:13-14). And although it’s popular for us to pray and ask Jesus into our hearts, the fact is Jesus is resurrected and alive in the body just as he ascended in the body, and so as Rom 8:9 says, it’s actually the Holy Spirit that lives inside us and the one we invite into our hearts. And this is the reason we are together called a Holy Temple (1 Cor. 3:16) because we are where God’s spirit resides and not in a building – in us.
For me the most beautiful thing we learn in scripture about the Holy Spirit is that it’s the Spirit who is said to carry our prayers to the Father (Rom. 8:11) and perhaps most importantly, takes our words (as human and as flawed as they are) as well as the very deepest groanings of our hearts (which we might not even fully understand) and then makes them sound “beautiful” to the ears of the Father. (Rom. 8:26-27) If you’ve ever felt as if you don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter because the Spirit makes our thoughts and our prayers perfect to the ears of the Father. That’s why some Pentecostals insist that simply making sounds is a form of prayer and why “speaking in tongues” is a thing.
When we talk about God the Father, we can understand the concept of a Father. When we talk about God the Son, again, we can understand a Son, but what happens when we say, God the Holy Spirit? People can understand something they see or know, but we can’t see the Spirit. However, the Holy Spirit is God; He’s not an it, but a person of the Godhead, and she is in every believer. The Holy Spirit does today what Jesus did 2000 years ago. He is God present in the world and within us.
When we accept Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, we receive the Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit is inside every believer, all the time. He doesn’t come and go or rest for a while but stays. You don’t have to experience earth-shaking “feelings” or emotions; you don’t have to jump, shout, cry, roll on the floor, or have any such outward displays of physical emotions to be indwelt with the spirit. But if you do, the spirit carries that to the Father as a prayer.
But you also can’t escape him. So, the next time you hear that still small voice in the back of your head, you’ve gotta wonder… Is that voice just you… Is it your concience OR is She… He… the same Spirit of Wisdom who hovered over all creation and now lives inside you? Amen.
Song: Jesus shall reign where’er the sun (275 vss 1.2.4.5)
We respond to serve God
Our time of giving
Prayers of the people
Holy God, we bless you for bringing us into communion with you, and offering us the unity in love you share as the blessed Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Help your church in all its branches discover the unity for which Christ prayed. Strengthen and equip your people in that unity.
By your Spirit, lead us to work together in building your realm, helping each other flourish according to your will.
Draw the human family together in the love that unites us with you, O God.
We pray for our nation and our local communities.
Where we have acted without regard for the needs of others, let us work for justice and fairness.
Where we have been blind to the pain of the oppressed, let us seek peace and reconciliation with those whom we have overlooked.
Especially we ask that you would guide all people in Canada to seek out reconciliation with our indigenous neighbours and establish relationship of mutual respect and honour.
Compassionate and loving God, we pray for all who are facing chaos or despair in these days.
Lift up in love those who find their illness unrelieved and those who love them most.
Our God, we thank you for this community of ministry and fellowship.
Strengthen us in the unity of Christ’s body.
Keep us forever faithful in worship and equipped for the service you call us to.
We pray all these things through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Song: Crown him with many crowns (274 vss 1,2,3,5)
Sending out with God’s blessing
Go in peace. Love and serve the Lord.
And may the blessing of God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Ever Three and ever One,
be with you now and always. Amen.
Response: He is Lord
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 License (3095377) and CLC (A735555).
The Rev. Brad Childs retains the copyright (© 2025) 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.