Sermon Tone Analysis

Names and addresses for Sept 11 homecoming

 

*Theme*

We seek to know who Jesus was, who Jesus is, and who Jesus can be for us.

Prelude

Welcome

Call to Worship                        *One:*    We see Jesus as Mary’s son, as God’s holy Son.

*All:*      We see Jesus as the Christ of God, the way, the truth, the life.

*One:*    We open our ears to hear his call, “Follow me!”

*All:      *Christ, we are yours; we give ourselves to you.

~*Hymn of Praise                       # 62     “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name”

Invocation        (the Lord’s Prayer)       O Jesus of Nazareth, who do we say that you are?

A prophet?

A teacher?

A healer?

A performer of miracles?

You are all these, and beyond all these.

You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, eternal One.

You are the Lord.

Guide us into abundant life in you.

Help us to worship you in spirit and truth.

Gloria Patri

Our  Offering to God                Come, let us bring our offering to the living God.

Doxology

Prayer of Dedication                 Loving God, may these gifts be used to enable others to come to know Jesus Christ as your Son, as their friend, and as their Lord and Savior.

May our offerings reflect the compassionate spirit of Jesus, so that others may see your love in us.

Amen.

Scripture Reading                     */Romans 12:1–8/*

~*Hymn of Prayer                      We Bring the Sacrifice of Praise (insert)

Pastoral Prayer                         Lord, in so many ways you reveal yourself to us, though we do not always recognize you.

We yearn to learn more about you through the life, death, and resurrection of your Son, Jesus Christ.

Thank you for the witness and testimony of others.

Open our hearts and minds to know more about your action in our lives each day.

Enable us to see you more clearly in order that we might follow your Son more nearly.

O God, we know that many people around the world find it hard to believe that there is a God, given the oppression and deprivations in their lives.

Some would turn away and reject you, Jesus Christ, because they have not yet found love and care in your church.

Take our lives this day, O God. Transform us into those who are your living witnesses, that all may know your grace through us.*

*Hear our prayers for others now, that they may be held close to your heart, never doubting that you are waiting to hold and heal all that is precious to them.

/The people pray/

Spread your justice and peace like a cloud of love around these people, O God. May they know that you will never leave them nor forsake them, Holy Spirit.

Turn our eyes towards you, Jesus Christ.

Give us glimpses of your divine life as we tread this earth.

~*Hymn of Praise                       # 201   *“Built on a Rock”*

More often than not, finding the hymn that is just right for a particular occasion requires a fair amount of pondering, leafing through hymnals, and imagination.

Such is the case with today’s texts, which offer several directions.

Nikolai Grundvig’s “Built on a Rock,” set to the tune KIRKEN DEN ER ET GAMMELT HUS by Ludvig Lindeman, opening line echoes precisely Jesus’ words to Peter in the gospel lesson, while the remainder of the hymn reflects ideas presented in the Romans text.

Scripture Reading                     Matthew 16:13–20

Message            *And Who Do You Say That He Is?*

*Sermon Summary** *It is good to know what others believe about Jesus, but it is more important for us to know what we believe about Jesus, and how he is the Christ for u     

In a sense, it was like a final exam.

The course work of Discipleship 101 had been completed.

All that remained was for Jesus to test what the disciples had learned over the past three years.

There were only a couple questions.

One sounded a bit like multiple-choice; the other was an essay question.

The first question required research.

The second was based on the disciples' own understanding and experience.

Jesus asked, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" Then Jesus asked, "Who do you say that I am?"

Jesus and his disciples had traveled to Caesarea Philippi in northernmost Israel, away from the distractions and confusion of Jerusalem.

Jesus confronted his "students" with the question about the identity of "the Son of Man," Jesus' favorite term for himself as reported in Matthew.

The disciples offered a series of possibilities pulled from tradition and from the past.

These disciples, who had heard Jesus preach and teach, heal and feed, sought to explain Jesus by pigeonholing him into past identities brought back to life.

They reported that some thought he was John the Baptist, or Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the other prophets.

When Jesus asked the disciples for their own assessment of who he was, Simon Peter ventured a reply: "You are the Christ."

~/~/~/~/~/~/         You can imagine how the other disciples might have reacted to exuberant Peter.

He had popped up with the right answer before anyone else.

~/~/ That "good answer" was rewarded with a blessing.

Jesus proclaimed that Peter would hold a special place in the life of the church.

Jesus asks us, too, "Who do you say that I am?" Everything we might have learned or will ever learn hangs on how we answer this.

In a way, one's whole life comes down to this question.

When he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, Matthew tells us that when the parade had caught the attention of the religious pilgrims who were there for the Feast of the Passover, the crowds began to ask one another, "Who is this?"

Some of the crowds offered an answer: "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee" (Mt 21:10-11).

It was their inability to correctly answer the question, "Who is this?" that led some to brand him as a common criminal while others lauded him as the Christ.

In spite of the centrality of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, what it says in the prologue to the Gospel of John is still true: "He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him" (Jn 1:10).

Similarly, Jesus Christ is in his church, and the church came into being through him; yet the church does not know him well either.

We talk about Jesus, sing about him, watch movies about him, teach our children about him, tell our children how much he loves them, and offer prayers in his name - even praying the prayer he taught us - and yet too few really know who Jesus is.

Too few know what happened between "born of the Virgin Mary" and "suffered under Pontius Pilate."

M. Scott Peck has called Jesus "the best-kept secret of Christianity."

There are some popular books that suggest that all of us need to have a new encounter with Jesus: Philip Yancey's The Jesus I Never Knew and Marcus Borg's Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time.

Those two titles pretty well say it for us.

Some of us really never knew Jesus.

We may need to meet him again as if we are meeting him for the first time.

A couple things are worth noting about this question that Jesus asked the disciples.

The timing was crucial.

He did not give a quiz the first day they came together.

He did not ask them what they thought of him when he recruited them, when they registered for Discipleship 101.

He simply said, "Follow me."

I doubt if any two of the original twelve had the same reasons for following Jesus.

They may have followed out of boredom with their lives, or fascination with Jesus' new teachings, or simply out of curiosity.

It was only after they had spent time with Jesus that they were called upon to make up their minds about him.

As in any personal relationship, our perceptions may change.

Our understanding of who Jesus is should reflect a progressive, dynamic relationship.

It requires time for us to come to know Jesus.

- William M. Schwein

It is after living with Discipleship 101 and maybe a few higher number courses that we are able to apply the Romans passage to our lives.~/~/~/~/~/

*High-tech hobbyists are now cruising the streets, looking for wireless networks and the information that hums across them, called *War drivers — the legal ones at least — are quick to say that they’re “just looking” at the availability of wireless networks and the information that hums across them.

If you think about it, that’s a good metaphor for the way that most people in our culture treat their spiritual lives.

Rather than landing in one spot or another, many people roam the airwaves and byways looking at an ever-increasing number of spiritual options that pop up on the map.

/They have the world at their fingertips but can’t find a place to belong.

They process lots of information, but experience very little transformation./

\\ In Romans 12, Paul encourages his readers /to stop driving around the existential block looking for meaning and instead locate in a very specific network neighborhood./

He urges the Romans to no longer conform to the wandering patterns of the world but instead “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (12:1).