A Christian Church, A Family of Faith

The Bass River Pastoral Charge

The Presbyterian Church in Canada

St. Mark’s, Bass River; St. James, Beersville; St. Andrew’s, Clairville & Zion, West Branch

Organists: Heather Morton, Marly Sutherland, Rodney Girvan, Dolly MacDonald, Shanece Wilson

Minister: Rev. Alexander [Sandy] D. Sutherland; B.A., B.Th. M.Div

Manse #: 506-785-4383 Cell #: 506-521-0705 Email: thebrpc@gmail.com Twitter: thebrpc

Bulletin Announcements:  Cathy Little @ Fillmore Trucking #785-1083

www.pccweb.ca/brpc

ORDER OF SERVICE

Epiphany

January 8^th 2012

Welcome & Announcements

“Memorial Bulb” Christmas season fundraisers

(These donationss will be recognized as a part of future services)

St. James Presbyterian Church, Beersville; will be lighting a Christmas tree in memory of loved ones.  Memorial bulbs are available for designation at $10 each; call Shelley Cail at 785-4323, Doreen Cail at 523-9357, or Audrey Glencross at 785-1983.

 

Call to Worship NBoP 153 Joy to the world [vs.1&2]

BoP 134

 

Prayer of Approach & Confession & The Lord’s Prayer (debts, debtors NBoP 831; BoP 605)

 

Opening Praise: NBoP 174 Worship the Lord

BoP 148

 

Responsive Reading  – Psalm 72 [BoP 642]

¹ Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king’s son.

² He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment.

³ The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness.

⁴ He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.

⁵ They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations.

⁶ He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth.

⁷ In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth.

⁸ He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.

⁹ They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust.

¹⁰ The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.

¹¹ Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him.

¹² For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper.

¹³ He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy.

¹⁴ He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight.

¹⁵ And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba: prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised.

¹⁶ There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.

¹⁷ His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed.

¹⁸ Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things.

¹⁹ And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen.

²⁰ The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.

KJV

 

Children’s story – The beginning of the story . . . how we tell our story. How do you begin your story, when you tell your story to other people?

[ref. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians]

 

Children’s Hymn: NBoP 141 Good Christians All rejoice

BoP 124 Good Christian men rejoice  

 

Scripture Readings:

OT – Isaiah 60:1-6

¹Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. ²For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. ³And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. ⁴Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side. ⁵Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee. ⁶The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall show forth the praises of the LORD. KJV

¹ “Arise, shine, for your light has come,

and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.

² See, darkness covers the earth

and thick darkness is over the peoples,

but the LORD rises upon you

and his glory appears over you.

³ Nations will come to your light,

and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

⁴ “Lift up your eyes and look about you:

All assemble and come to you;

your sons come from afar,

and your daughters are carried on the arm.

⁵ Then you will look and be radiant,

your heart will throb and swell with joy;

the wealth on the seas will be brought to you,

to you the riches of the nations will come.

⁶ Herds of camels will cover your land,

young camels of Midian and Ephah.

And all from Sheba will come,

bearing gold and incense

and proclaiming the praise of the LORD.

NIV

Epistle – Ephesians 3:1-12

¹For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, ²If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: ³How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, ⁴Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) ⁵Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; ⁶That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel: ⁷Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power. ⁸Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; ⁹And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: ¹⁰To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, ¹¹According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: ¹²In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. KJV

¹For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—

²Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, ³that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. ⁴In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, ⁵which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. ⁶This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

⁷I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. ⁸Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, ⁹and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. ¹⁰His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, ¹¹according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. ¹²In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

NIV

 

Hymn of Illumination:  NBoP 173 We three kings

(over head)

Scripture Readings:

Gospel – Mark 1:4-11

⁴John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. ⁵And there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. ⁶And John was clothed with camel’s hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey; ⁷And preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. ⁸I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.

⁹And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan. ¹⁰And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: ¹¹And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

KJV

⁴And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁵The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. ⁶John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. ⁷And this was his message: “After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. ⁸I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

⁹At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. ¹¹And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

NIV

 

 

Sermon: We’ve all got our reasons

 

John saw them coming from every corner of the world he knew. The gospel of Mark says that ‘the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem came to John’. How would it be if the whole Kent & Albert county countryside suddenly started showing up for church?

John must have see a fair variety of people come before him in the Jordan river, and there they confessed their sins, and when they confessed that they were sinners he baptized them.

Imagine what all John heard. In order to confess sin you have to know at least some of the sins you could commit. The one would come forward and say ‘I am a thief’ another, ‘I am a cheat’, another ‘I am a liar’; imagine all the things that John heard.

And each person would have their excuses, the thief might say they needed what they stole, the cheat might say they were only looking for another way of doing things, and the liar might say that what they told was not even that far from the truth, but  – in the case of those who came out to John at the Jordan – they made a confession that what they had done was the wrong thing to do.

Today I want to talk about the vocal part of your life of faith. Today I want you to think that if John the baptizer was to arrive and, for the sake of fairness let say the water of Richiboucto river always ran like the warm waters of summer, preaching a baptism of forgiveness, call each one of you to the water, what would you say about the wrong you have done.

And I want you to understand something, because if you were to be confronted by John, as someone who is knowledgeable in the ways and will of God, there is not much point in keeping the sins hidden. Sin is not something that hides very well, or for very long.

I often find that when I am helping others come to a point of confession in their lives, that the biggest thing that they have to deal with is not that they sinned. Everybody sins. What most people have trouble with is when they get to the point of confession, in prayer, before God – not me or anyone else – but before God, they have trouble with their excuses.

Have you ever been caught in that burning ring of excuses? All they are is lies. They are the lies we tell ourselves to make us think that what we did was not as bad as we thought, the sin is not as deep as some might make us believe; “Well I only stole, because . . .”, “But, I only cheated because the rules were unfair.”

Do you hear them? Do you remember them from some of the prayers you have given? Is there something that sounds like words you have said to a loved one? When you have been confronted and asked about certain actions in your life, when you have stumbled across your own mistakes, are you quicker on the draw with your excuses for your sins? Or reasons for your salvation?

Excuses start with something like ‘I only’ . . . ‘But I only’ and when we invoke an excuse what we are trying to tell people, God, ourselves, is that our sin is not all that bad, and that Christ Jesus came and died on the cross for bigger sins than the ones in our lives. And if that is our attitude all we are doing is distancing ourselves from God.

Christ Jesus came into the world to do something that is well beyond what John could do. John could only help the people who came without excuses and confessed their sins as sins. John could not effect the changes that Christ could offer. What John could do is say, “Here is an occasion when you have separated yourself from your sin.”

What John did was offer a forum, a situation for people to recognize that they did sin, that they don’t want to sin, but John’s baptism is with water, and once a person turned back to their old ways, and once the excuses built up enough for them to forget that a sin was a sin. Once that happened, people would come back looking for that baptism of forgiveness again; just as the Jews had to keep that circle going in and out, in and out, of the temple with their sacrifices and petitions. And the more excuses you could come up with, the more trips to the Jordan or to the alter you would have to make.

But that is very different from what happens in the baptism we have in Christ. In Christ Jesus – in Christ coming – we are baptized with water, and with God’s Holy Spirit. The water is an outward visible sign of inward – not invisible – grace. What we seek in baptism is not simply that sin will be washed away, but that our excuses for sin – both before and after we commit them – will lose its strength, and that instead we will all display our reasons for believing, we will be able to declare our reason for our faith.

I think we often get this backwards. We treat our reasons for believing like excuses and our excuses for our sins like reason why we don’t need the deep spiritual cleansing that forgiveness in Christ gives us.

This is one of the things that so many people, in looking at the church see it is inauthentic, and today’s modern Christians as fakes, because we often spend a great deal of time telling people just how much we do not need Christ, about how good we really are, about how not-so-bad bad our sins really are, and in so doing we distance ourselves from God. And this is an awful realization to come to, that the excuse that many people give for not coming to Christ and belonging to a church, and being in the fellowship of believers, has been given to them by us, by we who would call ourselves Christians.

We don’t come together proclaiming our sins, saying “ I am more evil than you, so Christ will be closer to me.” But at the same time we need to say more, “I really need Christ, because when I look at my life, I know how messed up I am inside.” And we also need to say, and say it openly, “And if you are messed up too, if you sin like I sin, then you likely need this grace too.”

And when the grace flows over us, and into our lives, and over the hot fire of our sins and all the burning coals of our excuses, you want to talk about relief, and you’ll want to talk about your relief.

Have you ever found a medicine that cure that impossible irritating, aching, debilitating disease or condition? Didn’t you just want to tell the universe about that cure?

So why do we so often respond to our salvation with excuses like, “Our sin wasn’t SO bad.”

Do you have a reason for your faith, or an excuse for lack of it?

What comes out of your lips when people ask you why you go to church? Or, why you read your bible? Or, why you live you life the way you do?

Listen to the Apostle Paul as your example: When he speaks he does not give excuses for what he does not do for God, he searches and offers reason for all that Christ Jesus is doing through him.

We all have reasons, Christ Jesus came to give us reason for living – and not just today. Christ Jesus came, that our reason might be so great that we will continue to give them and rejoice in those reasons, now and forever. Amen

 

Prayer of Thanksgiving and Intercession

 

God’s Tithes and our gifts

Doxology (NBoP 830; BoP 603)

Offertory Prayer

Commissioning Hymn: NBoP 172 As with gladness men of old

BoP 154

Benediction

Dismissal: NBoP 153 Joy to the world [vs. 3&4]

BoP 134