First Presbyterian Church
October 24, 2021
10:00 AM
Order of Worship
CALL
TO WORSHIP
When
the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed.
Then
our mouths were filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy.
Then
it was said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.”
The Lord has done great things for us. Let us
rejoice and give thanks!
Let
us worship the Living God.
*Hymn
of Praise: “All Glory, Laud, and Honor”
Refrain:
All glory, laud, and honor, to thee, Redeemer, King, to whom the lips of
children made sweet hosannas ring.
1.
Thou art the King of Israel, thou David's royal Son, who in the Lord's name
comest, the King and Blessed One. (Refrain)
2.
The company of angels are praising thee on high, and we with all creation in
chorus make reply. (Refrain)
3.
The people of the Hebrews with psalms before thee went; our prayer and praise
and anthems before thee we present. (Refrain)
4.
To thee, before thy passion, they sang their hymns of praise; to thee, now high
exalted, our melody we raise. (Refrain)
5.
Thou didst accept their praises; accept the prayers we bring, who in all good
delightest, thou good and gracious King. (Refrain)
PRAYER OF CONFESSION (In Unison)
God of perfect love, you continually bring forth life,
transforming sadness to joy, and despair to hope We are weak, but you are
strong. Our ways are flawed, but your ways are true. We are seldom right, but
you are never wrong. Forgive us, redeem us, transform us. Take away the sin
that burdens us, and restore us to the people you would have us be, for the
sake of Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
*SILENT PRAYERS
OF CONFESSION
ASSURANCE OF
PARDON
Relentlessly, God seeks us out. With abundant grace and boundless mercy,
God seeks us out. This is good news! In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven!
*THE GLORIA
PATRI
Glory be to the
Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is
now, and ever shall be, world without end.
Amen.
INVITATION: “Dear Lord, I
need You, please come into my life today.
Amen”
SCRIPTURAL INTRODUCTION
Acts 9: 1-25
A third
of the way into the Book of Acts and we meet the apostle who will, arguably,
have the greatest influence over the development of Christianity to our very
day. We meet Paul, name changed from
Saul by Jesus in his vision of conversion.
As a character, Saul appears a little sooner in the book, but as a
persecutor of the Christians-including at the martyrdom of Stephen.
His
past is acknowledged in the text. Before
Jesus appears to him, he is described as “breathing threats and murder against
the disciples of the Lord.” When Ananias
is called to take him in, the first reaction of Ananias is to question about
this man who up until that moment had been persecuting the believers of Jesus.
He will
go on first to preach to the Jews in Damascus, where his conversion took place,
and then in Jerusalem where, although the disciples are initially fearful of
him, Barnabas stands up for him and he is accepted. It seems that his conversion from such a
rabid “Christian hater” to one who is now speaking out on behalf of Jesus was
enough to inspire a plot to kill him by the very leaders on whose behalf he had
been working.
Saul,
whose name will be changed to Paul, is called with a purpose. When Ananias questions Saul’s credentials as
one who persecuted the Christians, the Lord replies, ‘Go, for he is an
instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and
before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must
suffer for the sake of my name.’
This is
how the life of Paul is going to play out.
In the book of Acts, the focus of the book will shift to Paul and the
three ‘missionary journeys’ that he undertook.
In the New Testament, the letters he wrote to these various churches and
to select individuals will also be gathered to become the largest selection of
books in the New Testament.
In the
New Testament, Paul will be the most influential apostle in terms of ministry
extended to the Gentiles. He will as
also suffer for the faith, always living in the shadow of his time as an agent
of destruction to the faith, and finally going to prison for his faith. In prison, as a Roman citizen, he will appeal
to the Emperor to hear his case and will be moved from the Promised Land to
Rome, under guard, and the historical narrative of the New Testament concludes
with his still waiting for his appeal to be heard.
As an
apostle, Paul serves as the bridge between the Jewish heritage of the faith
Jesus taught to its expansion to the Gentile world in which it ascended.
LESSONS: Acts 9: 1-25
9Meanwhile
Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord,
went to the high priest 2and asked him for letters to the
synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or
women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3Now as he was
going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed
around him. 4He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to
him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ 5He asked, ‘Who are
you, Lord?’ The reply came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 6But
get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.’ 7The
men who were travelling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice
but saw no one. 8Saul got up from the ground, and though his
eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought
him into Damascus. 9For three days he was without sight, and
neither ate nor drank.
10 Now
there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a
vision, ‘Ananias.’ He answered, ‘Here I am, Lord.’ 11The Lord
said to him, ‘Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of
Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, 12and
he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on
him so that he might regain his sight.’ 13But Ananias answered,
‘Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your
saints in Jerusalem; 14and here he has authority from the chief
priests to bind all who invoke your name.’ 15But the Lord said
to him, ‘Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before
Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; 16I myself
will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.’ 17So
Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said,
‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent
me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ 18And
immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was
restored. Then he got up and was baptized, 19and after taking
some food, he regained his strength.
For
several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, 20and
immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the
Son of God.’ 21All who heard him were amazed and said, ‘Is not
this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem among those who invoked this name? And
has he not come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief
priests?’ 22Saul became increasingly more powerful and
confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the
Messiah.
23 After
some time had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, 24but their
plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night so that
they might kill him; 25but his disciples took him by night and
let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.
26 When
he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples; and they were all
afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. 27But
Barnabas took him, brought him to the apostles, and described for them how on
the road he had seen the Lord, who had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he
had spoken boldly in the name of Jesus. 28So he went in and out
among them in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. 29He
spoke and argued with the Hellenists; but they were attempting to kill
him. 30When the believers learned of it, they brought him
down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.
31 Meanwhile
the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and was built up.
Living in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it
increased in numbers.
SERMON: “Life
Lessons In The Holy Spirit” Rev. Peter Hofstra
Acts 9: 1-25
So the
details of our passage are fairly straight forward. Saul is confronted by Jesus on the road to
Damascus, blinded by the Lord, and here he has his conversion experience. Ananias, a believer in Damascus, is then sent
by Jesus to take him in. A prophecy of
the ministry that Saul is to undertake sets the stage for Saul to become Paul
the apostle. Paul then begins to preach
in Damascus, but his former colleagues, seeing him ‘switch sides’, plot to kill
him. So they get him out of
Damascus. Paul goes to Jerusalem where
the apostles are initially worried about this man who is known to them as
‘breathing threats and murder against the disciples of Jesus’ but Barnabas, who
is witness to what happened in Damascus, stands up for Saul/Paul, he is
accepted into the community. When he
starts to preach in Jerusalem, there is another conspiracy that arises to kill
him, so they smuggle him out yet again.
With Paul converted and in safety in Tarsis, the Bible records that the
church then found a time of peace in the Holy Spirit to grow and flourish.
It is a
powerful story in the book of Acts, coming at a significant point of
transition. At the beginning of the
book, the call is to share the baptism of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem, in
Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. With Saul, who becomes Paul, we have the
apostle by whom the journey of the church to the ends of the earth will find
its beginning. Paul will undertake three
missionary journeys in the book of Acts, his name will go on 13 of the 27 books
of the New Testament, he has a tremendous influence on how Jesus and the plan
of God is understood and interpreted for the church down through the ages.
As we
look to his story, I want to call our attention to how what we know of Jesus is
made manifest in this moment in Paul’s life, how Jesus communicates with us,
how Jesus is portrayed to us. It is one
thing to talk about the beauty and wonder that is our Lord in the abstract, but
it is perhaps more powerful to see how those talks find reality in Jesus’ work
among us. This process is how we see the
Holy Spirit working through the text and working in us to bring the message of
Jesus ever more powerfully into our lives and worship.
So what
do I mean by this?
Remember
last week, we spoke of Jesus the Warrior.
We shared how much caution must be exercised in how such imagery is used
in the affairs of the world. But here, I
think we can see how the image of Jesus the Warrior finds expression. How about in the war for Saul’s very
soul? From the executioner of the
faithful to the champion of the faithful, I see the victory of Jesus, the rider
on the White Horse, overcoming the evil that had infected the heart of this
man.
This is
language that Paul himself will allude to in his letters. Such is the blessing of having his personal
letters as part of the Canon of Scripture.
He is open and introspective about how Jesus has affected him and
changed him in a way that I do not think he would be if he believed his letters
were going to be ‘for the ages’ and not just for the particular churches and
individuals with which he was in correspondence.
Are you
with me? Seeing through the lens of the
Holy Spirit how the image of Jesus the Warrior plays out in the “battleground”
of the soul?
I
believe we can also see how Jesus works with the lives we have lived as enter
the life that He calls us to. Who we are
in the world, that is the person, those are the talents, that is the one whom
Jesus is calling to His ministry.
Consider the dialogue between Ananias and Jesus, “But Ananias answered,
‘Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your
saints in Jerusalem; 14and here he has authority from the chief
priests to bind all who invoke your name.’ 15But the Lord said
to him, ‘Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before
Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; 16I myself
will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.’”
Saul’s
background and upbringing seem to be those of an educated religious type, a
Rabbi or Pharisee in the tradition of the time.
So it is from that upbringing, from that background, that he will
passionately defend and define how the finer points of Jewish thought and
theology find their fulfillment and ultimate working out in the Person and
Ministry of Jesus Christ. He is the most
prolific theological thinker of the New Testament.
In this
passage, we see how the Lord Jesus fulfills the promises that He made that,
although He ascended into heaven, He is with us in the Holy Spirit. He calls the unbeliever through the Holy
Spirit. Such is the conversion vision
that Saul has in direct confrontation with Jesus. While it is true that we do not run into many
stories today about Jesus blinding us while we travel to confront us with our
sins, neither did the early church. It
was Paul’s unique run in with the Almighty.
But it is not how it was done that is so important as what was
done. Here was a persecutor of the church,
inciting mobs to murder, throwing people in prison for believing in Jesus, and
how radically was his life turned around?
But
note that, in the Holy Spirit, Jesus does not just confront the sinner, but He
leads the saved. He came to Ananias, he
answered the questions this believer had about Saul, he empowered Ananias to
heal Paul and to become his guide in the community of faith in Damascus.
While
these direct conversations with Jesus are not as common today, it is not that
Jesus does not speak to us. The record
of Saul’s conversion, the letters that Paul is going to write from this point,
the history of the book of Acts, those along with the gospels and the rest of
the canon of Scripture, the Holy Bible, that is where Jesus speaks to us from
in this age.
This
story also speaks to us of the power of forgiveness in Jesus. Not only does the Christian community both in
Damascus and in Jerusalem offer forgiveness and acceptance to the man who
hunted them, but they put themselves at risk for him. Conspiracies to murder Paul were rife, and
with good reason. It does not look well
for the opposition if their number one attack dog against this new, upstart
sect with Judaism has suddenly joined the other side. They put themselves at risk in saving his life. Forgiveness is one thing, but look at what
forgiveness led to. The communities of
faith were not just neutral in their attitudes to Paul, but they put themselves
in harm’s way to keep him out of it.
I think
where we can connect with the Holy Spirit in our own life and times out of this
story is in the person of Barnabas. The
text does not identify Jesus coming to him directly, unlike to Paul and to
Ananias, but Jesus is there nonetheless.
Paul is trying to crack open the Christian community in Jerusalem. Remember, he’d already been arresting
there. It seems he took the show on the
road because he’d driven the church underground so there were no more easy
pickings among Jesus’ followers to imprison.
Now he’s asking for them to come out into the open, for him. He’s not exactly trust building.
So the
Holy Spirit works through Barnabas. The
man was in the right place at the right time, he was witness to Damascus. He is a person that the community trusts and
listen to. And he is led to do the right
thing. The Spirit leads him to
essentially sponsor Paul to the apostles, to take responsibility for him among
the leaders of the church. Face it, if
we remove our consideration of the Holy Spirit to speculate on ‘what if’
Barnabas was wrong, Saul gathered the leaders of the conspiracy he had been
trying to stomp out all in one place.
It’s a
conversion story, so of course Jesus is there, but the presence of Jesus in the
Holy Spirit, the emphases of Jesus in our life and ministry, the imagery of
Jesus opened to us across Scripture, all those are to be found here as
well.
What
then are we to do with this? It is an
invitation to consider life. But to
consider life from a particular point of view.
Where is Jesus is what is happening to us? Are things not going so well, but we have
endured and overcome? Do we see the hand
of Christ upon us in those circumstances?
The hand of Christ was upon Paul through two assassination plots in our
passage this morning.
Has
something in life happened where there was the need to stop and reassess, to
consider what is going on is a good choice or a bad choice? Sometimes something looks really good, but
you know the wisdom ‘too good to be true’.
Was there a little voice, or a screaming voice that warned “don’t do it?” May not be as obvious as Jesus appearing to
Paul, but still.
Or
maybe you happen to be in the right place at the right time to be there for
someone else, like Ananias was there for Paul.
Maybe there is a whispered voice that pushes us away from the attitude
that ‘this is not my problem’.
We live
our lives in the guidance of our Lord Jesus.
But it does not have to appear to be so happenstance. A life that begins daily with “Jesus, use me
as You will” may not change what possibilities are out there for us in the
given day, but might just open our eyes to see them and open our hearts to
accept them in a way we might not have otherwise.
A heart
for God is a heart for our neighbors, because a heart for God is a loving
heart, and that love of God is only ever slightly more important than our love
of neighbor. I would argue that the
reality of a heartfelt love for God, instead of some words that sound good in
the mind, is when we live out heartfelt love for our neighbors.
Where
does this come from? It does not just
happen. It comes from the outworking of
the Holy Spirit in our hearts. To pray,
Lord Jesus, make me more receptive to people in need of your love is to pray,
“Lord Jesus, I open my heart to the Holy Spirit.” Because the Holy Spirit is not an empty
vessel that we then fill.
No, in
Christ, when we truly open our hearts to His love, forgiveness, and concern for
neighbors and friends, we empty ourselves of the greed and sin of the world and
it is the Holy Spirit that fills us with the good things of Jesus so that we
live lives of faith.
Read
Acts 9 again, look for where Jesus is working in the life of Saul, of
Paul. Meditate on the Word of God, in
this case, where now could I see the work of Jesus going on in my own life? Where can I more fully express the Holy
Spirit in me? Where can the love of
Christ open my heart that I may come to know more fully what it means to be a
child of the Living God? Amen.
AFFIRMATION OF FAITH (The Apostle’s Creed)
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth;
And in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord; who was conceived by
the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was
crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose from
the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the
Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the
communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and
the life everlasting. Amen.
PASSING OF THE
PEACE
THE OFFERING OF
OUR TITHES & GIFTS
ur God trusts us to be agents of change
and love. May we respond to the generosity of our God and to God’s ceaseless
hope in us by serving God through the sharing of the gifts of our time, toil
and treasure.
*DOXOLOGY
Praise God, from
whom all blessings flow; Praise Him, all creatures here below; Praise Him
above, ye heavenly host; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
*PRAYER OF
DEDICATION
God of
love, we know that all good things come from you. As we return these gifts to
you, we pray that they will bring you joy. We pray that you will show us how to
use them to serve you, your church and your people that you may be glorified.
We pray this in the name of the one who modeled servant love for us, Jesus
Christ. Amen.
JOYS
AND CONCERNS
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
Merciful God, powerful and
wonderful, eternally present and graciously close, we are grateful for what you
have given us in Jesus Christ: life and love without end. Prompted by your
Spirit and encouraged by your faithfulness, we lift to you the cares and
concerns of our hearts, the burdens and the worries of our lives. We pray that
the sick would be healed, that the broken would be mended, that the mournful
would be comforted. We pray that warriors would yield to peace, that leaders
would gain wisdom, that the forsaken would be gathered in. We pray that the sorrowful
would be consoled, that the poor would be lifted up, that the anxious would be
released. We pray for children in their growing and for youth in their seeking.
We pray for those making new starts and for those nearing a journey’s end. We
pray for those facing hard choices and for those enduring painful consequences.
We pray for those filled with bitterness and for those who are just empty. We
pray that your church might claim its potential, that the body of Christ might
be strengthened by its many parts, that the work of ministry might be done with
joy and thanksgiving. We pray for the courage to follow Jesus, for the faith to
trust your promises to us, for the vision to see your kingdom among us even
now. We pray for all that you would have us pray. We pray for those for whom no
one prays. We pray all of these things in the name of the one who ceaselessly
prays for us, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Trusting in Christ, we offer together the
prayer he taught us:
Our
Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be
done on earth as it is in heaven. Give
us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our
debtors. Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil; for Thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory
forever. Amen.
*CLOSING HYMN: “Blessed
Assurance”
1.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of
salvation, purchase of God, born of his Spirit, washed in his blood.
Refrain: This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day
long; this is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long.
2.
Perfect submission, perfect delight, visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
angels descending bring from above echoes of mercy, whispers of love. (Refrain)
3.
Perfect submission, all is at rest; I in my Savior am happy and blest, watching
and waiting, looking above, filled with his goodness, lost in his love. (Refrain)
*BENEDICTION
*THREE FOLD AMEN
Elements of Order of Worship Liturgy Liturgy written by John
Wurster, pastor of St. Philip Presbyterian Church in Houston.
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