Sermon Tone Analysis

*Theme                 *Making peace is an important form of celebrating the resurrection of Christ.

Prelude

Welcome

Call to Worship          

*One: *        Come children of God, let us worship God.

*All:    *We will worship God and keep God’s commandments.

*One:           *Come, blessed recipients of Christ’s peace, let us worship God.

*All:    *We will worship God and live as peacemakers in Christ’s name.

~*Hymn of Praise          # 398        I Come to the Garden Alone

~*Invocation        (the Lord’s Prayer)       We Come into your presence Lord, let us touch the life of the Christ.

Let us lay down our struggles for faith at the feet of the One who is as near as touching.

For this is the Christ who comes with gifts of hope, trustworthy with all that we bring here, gathering in the realities of our doubts and confusions and holding them tenderly in understanding.

~*Gloria Patri               # 575

Our  Offering to God           Sometimes faith comes as a gift rather than as a development within our own lives.

Like the disciples we can be people of faith one day and those who struggle for faith on the next, depending on the way our lives travel.

There is a profound mercy about God that is witnessed in the repeated appearances of the risen Jesus to his friends.

He accepted that they may see him once and believe and then lose that faith and hope when the going became tough again.

Faith that is the gift of God in the midst of ongoing trouble is faith that will often stand the test.

It is that gift given when the wounded hands of Christ have touched our still-open bleeding in life, when our blood of pain is mingled with that of the Christ.

~*Offertory Sentence

In response to the presence of Jesus with us, let us bring our offerings to God, remembering all God’s goodness to us.

~*Doxology                  #572

~*Prayer of Dedication   O God, the easiest gifts to offer in your name are the gifts of things.

With little effort and not much thought, we can give away a bit of money, a loaf of bread, a bag of clothes, or a pair of shoes that hurt our feet.

We find it far more difficult to give when the gift most needed is that of words of reconciliation, or strategies for nonviolent solutions to conflict, or the gift of ourselves as bridges that bring people together.

In this moment we dedicate to you both the things that we give with ease and the most difficult gifts we ever offer, ourselves.

Amen.

Scripture Reading                Acts 3:12-20

In a public sermon delivered before a large crowd at Solomon’s Portico, a part of the temple area in Jerusalem, Peter reviewed the key components of salvation history.

He ended the sermon with a call to repentance.

12When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, “You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?

13The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him.

14But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, 15and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead.

To this we are witnesses.

16And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.

17“And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.

18In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer.

19Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, 20so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus.

~*Hymn of Prayer          # 277        Jesus My Lord Will Love Me Forever

Pastoral Prayer  O God, the courage of the early disciples challenges us.

With faithfulness to your divine authority, they spoke prophetically and acted compassionately at great risk to themselves personally.

The gospel was proclaimed, hurting people were helped, and the Christian community was strengthened.

Our loyalties, on the other hand, tend to vacillate between competing authorities.

Rationalized timidity takes a heavy toll on public expressions of our faith.

Justifications for inaction deny people in need the bold compassion consistent with the character of Jesus.

grant us clarity about to whom our ultimate loyalty belongs.

grant us generosity in our sharing with people in need.

grant us fidelity to living out our identity as your children.

grant us courage in speech and action, so that we may provide credible evidence of the power of the risen Christ and bring new life to individuals and to communities.

~/~/~/~/ Holy God, we want to be known as your children, “children of God” living as emissaries of the love of God.

But, we know ourselves and readily confess our sins.

We seek fellowship with you even as we shun fellowship with others.

We mislead ourselves, thinking that we are good enough to judge others while failing to look realistically at our own weaknesses, faults, and sins.

We affirm commandments that we refuse to obey.

Words of love come from hearts in which prejudice resides.

Even as we confess our wrongs, however, we rejoice in your promise of forgiveness.

If we confess our sins, you, who are faithful and just, will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Grateful for that assurance, we confess and repent, requesting the grace and strength that will enable us to walk as Christ walked.~/~/~/

Prayer of Intercession

Jesus Christ, on this day, as we remember your life-giving presence among those who needed you, we pray that, in every part of the world, those who need you will find you./~/~/Silence

~/~//We pray that you will be in every violent place, bringing your gift of peace, entering troubled hearts and minds and inviting different possibilities.

Especially, we pray for these places and people now:

Rise in our midst and inspire us to new ways, greater love and care, and the laying down of power in the hope of kinder and more just solutions.

We pray for those who wait with longing hearts for forgiveness, carrying, like a heavy yoke on their shoulders, deathly burdens of guilt and shame, unable to move past them and into the light of your freedom: Make us the bearers of your forgiveness, loving God, bringing to the world our own testimonies of your kindness in the face of human failure and frailty.

Shine in our faces, Jesus Christ, so that we look on others with the same grace that belongs to you, remembering all that you have given to us in our very human journeying.

Take our hands now and send us out to be more truly your people in the world.

This we pray in faith believing

 If we search, we will find, and if we ask, it will be given.

God will send to us the Holy Spirit, the comforter and healer.

The Christ will be made real in our forgiveness.

Let us walk into our future in newness and faith.

Amen.

~*Hymn of Praise          # 151        Beneath the Cross of Jesus

Scripture Reading              *John 14: 1-14*

1“Do not let your hearts be troubled.

Believe in God, believe also in me.

2In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.

If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.

4And you know the way to the place where I am going.”

5Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going.

How can we know the way?” 6Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

7If you know me, you will know my Father also.

From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

8Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”

9Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me?

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

10Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?

The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.

11Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.

12Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.

13I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

14If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

Message         What Difference Does Easter Make?

\\ The Resurrection's effects on life and death.

by Rick Warren

*A* lot of people say, "I believe in the resurrection; I just don't understand it."

Pollster George Gallup said even 84 percent of people who never go to church believe Jesus rose from the dead.