Sermon Tone Analysis

Call to Worship            L: We are gathered together to worship the God who has called us to love God.

\\ P: And the God who has asked us to follow God's direction.

\\ L: We are a invited to worship God in the Spirit of truth.

\\ P: We do so, because we know the Spirit and the Spirit knows us.

\\ L: We are reminded that we are not alone.

\\ P: Because the Holy Spirit is among us, Jesus is with God, and God is present.

\\ L: Let us rejoice that because he lives, we, too, live! \\ -Based on John 14:15-21.

\\ \\

 

PRAISE SONGS

GREETINGS

            (Children’s Time                                   Communion)

 

INVOCATION             Eternal God, the idols we have made and worshipped, our  yearning after success and recognition, we confess to you.

Our  secret jealousies, our hidden irritation at the foibles of  others, we admit.

Our private sense of superiority, our  impatience with those who turn to us in their need, we place  before you.

Forgive us, we pray.

Enlarge within us that love for  others by which we may yet be found faithful at the end.

praise

troops

ill

mourn

new pastor

~/LORD’S PRAYER

Hymn                           O, the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus         # 477 \\                                                

 

SPECIAL MUSIC     

Scripture Reading         Acts 17:22-31

Offering

Hymn                           I Have Decided to Follow Jesus            # 576 \\ \\

Scripture text    John 14:15-21 \\ Sermon            I Will Not Leave You Alone

     There's an old saying about the way you get people to hear  what you're saying, that goes something like: Tell them what  you're going to tell them.

Tell them.

Then, tell them what you  told them.

For some reason I connect that with the military, but this  morning I want to connect that with Jesus.

Because the way the  writer of the Gospel according to John has set up the teaching of  Jesus in the passage I just read is like that.

Jesus tells us  what he is going to tell us.

Jesus tells us.

Then Jesus tells us  what he told us.

To disciples who were as disconcerted about their lives as  we often are about ours, Jesus said: "...

I will ask the Father  to send you the Holy Spirit who will help you and always be with  you"  (John 14:16 CEV).

What he's telling us he's going to tell us is that he will  not leave us alone.

Then he tells us: "I won't leave you like  orphans.

I will come back to you" (John 14:18 CEV).

I will not leave you alone!

Don't get hung up right there on theories and theologies  about the how and when of what some would call the "second"  coming.

Because, first, before all that, Jesus is simply telling  us what he told us he would tell us.

I will not leave you alone!

And then, like a parent (maybe, today, like a mother) who  says to a child, "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand  times!" Jesus tells us what he told us: "The Holy Spirit will  come and help you, because the Father will send the Spirit to  take my place ... So don't be worried or afraid" (John 14:26-27  CEV).

I will not leave you alone!

Where I am, and always will be, is with you.

"Rise, let us  be on our way" (John 14:31 NRSV).

"It is time for us to go now"   (John 14:31 CEV).

C'mon -- let's go!

Whatever happens, we're in  it together, said Jesus.

The teaching in John takes us back before the crucifixion,  when Jesus' disciples were, perhaps, only beginning to realize  the political realities of Jesus' situation.

It wasn't any easier  than it is for you or me for Jesus to fight "City Hall."

It  wasn't any easier than it is for you or me for Jesus to stand for  right in face of wrong.

It wasn't any easier than it is for you  or me for Jesus to make hard decisions.

And the Bible never tells  us it will get easier.

What it does tell us is that when it gets  harder, we can hold fast to God's promise to be with us and not  to leave us hanging out there alone.

Jesus knew full well that those who hang in there sometimes  get hung out to dry, and even hung on a cross to die.

He is not  denying that reality.

He is pointing to a greater reality -- the  presence of God with you and me, knowing full well how hard it is  for you and me to hear it.

Jesus was a Jew.

To the Jews first, and to all of us always,  God has called us to hear what he tells us.

The single greatest  truth the people of God have proclaimed from the beginning, the  great truth of Israel, calls us to hear that God has not  abandoned us, that God will never leave us -- alone.

Our Jewish friends call it "the Shema" from the Hebrew for  "hear."

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.

You  shall love the Lord your God with all your heart; and with all  your soul; and with all your might"  (Deuteronomy 6:4 NRSV).

"Listen, Israel!

The Lord our God is the only true God!  So  love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength"   (CEV).

That's the faith of Jesus who said to you and me, "Have  faith in God and have faith in me."

     "...

I will ask the Father to send you the Holy Spirit who  will help you and always be with you"  (John 14:1, 16 CEV).

I will not leave you alone!

I just moved biblically from the words of the writer of the  ancient book of Deuteronomy to the words of Jesus.

I can do that  because that's what the Bible does.

It tells us what God is going  to tell us.

It tells us.

And it tells us what he told us.

From  walking in the Garden with God in the book of Genesis, to waking  up in heaven with God in the Revelation of John, the Bible says  God is with his people, and we are always with him.

As the  Psalmist put it, "The Lord of hosts is with us"  (Psalm 46:7, 11  NRSV).

"The Lord All-Powerful is with us" (CEV).

And always will  be.

Jesus said that to his disciples who'd heard it before,  knowing full well that they didn't hear it  --  not really.

So  having told them what they had already been told by their faith  in the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and having told them  himself of God's love in him, he told them,"The Spirit will teach  you everything and will remind you of what I said..."  (John  14:26 CEV).

The Spirit will tell you what I told you.

This is one of those passages where we have to deal with the  Doctrine of the Trinity, our attempt to understand and explain  God as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

This  doctrine has vexed Christians from the beginning.

And we've come up with everything from three Gods to a God  who is a committee.

But could it be so simple as to take Jesus at his word?

That  by his revelation of himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God  has simply told us (1), and told us (2), and told us (3) of his  love and his presence with us.

On this Chancel Choir Recognition Sunday, we need to hear  the words we sing and heed them.

We began with these:

 

So has the church,

in liturgy and song, In faith and love, through centuries of  wrong, Borne witness to the truth in every tongue ...1

 

     The truth by which we can live and die!

The Lord of hosts is  with us.

Jesus Christ is with us.

The Holy Spirit, the Lord of  hosts, the presence of Christ in the here-and-now is with us --  with you and with me.

That's something in which we can take great comfort.

It can  also be very disconcerting.

We have to be careful, lest we turn  God into a caretaker whose only concern is keeping you and me  comfortable.

Someone once said that the job of a pastor is to  comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.