Worship Services for Sunday, August 3, 2014

Invocation

Almighty God, create in us a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within us, that amid the din and confusion of this noisy world we may always choose the more excellent way.  Through Christ.  Amen

Prayers for the church of Christ, for others, for yourself.

Scripture: 2nd Corinthians 1:3-11

Sermon for Sunday, August 3, 2014

It’s In The Blood

2^nd Cor. 1:3-11

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  ⁵ For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort, too.  ⁶ If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.  ⁷ Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

⁸ For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia.  For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.  ⁹ Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.  ¹⁰ He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us.  On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.  ¹¹ You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.

Last year 2,123 Christians died because they worshiped Jesus Christ, and they would not abandon Him.

The year before that, 1,201 Christians were slaughtered, many right in their own homes.

Of last year’s 2,123 dead, more than half of those reported killings (1,213) occurred in Syria, followed by Nigeria (612) and Pakistan (88).

In North Korea — a country of more than 24 million souls – there are an estimated 300,000 Christians surviving under one of the most oppressive regimes in our time.  In that very poor nation Christians must deal with corrupt officials, bad policies, natural disasters, diseases and hunger, while hiding their decision to follow Christ.  For if they are caught with a Bible they are either executed or must live out a life-long political prison sentence.  It is estimated 50,000 to 70,000 Christians survive in concentration camps, prisons and prison-like circumstances under the regime of leader Kim Jong-Un.  More than 80 percent of people worldwide identify with a religious group, according to 2011 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.  Of those, 2.2 billion, or 32 percent, identified themselves as Christians, followed by 1.6 billion Muslims (23 percent) and 1 billion Hindus (15 percent).

The survey also found that roughly 1.1 billion people, or 16 percent worldwide, have no religious affiliation, making that segment the third-largest religious group globally and roughly equal in size to the world’s Catholic population.

In 2011 the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life performed a survey that indicated more than 80 percent of people worldwide identify with a religious group; 2.2 billion, or 32 percent, identified themselves as Christians, followed by 1.6 billion Muslims (23 percent) and 1 billion Hindus (15 percent).

Their survey also revealed that 1.1 billion people, or 16 percent worldwide, claim no religious affiliation at all.  That makes them roughly equal in size to the world’s Catholic population among Christians.

In 2011, the Center for the Study of Global Christianity revealed that more than 100,000 Christians were being martyred every year.  That figure means a Christian is being murdered somewhere in the world every five minutes.

This past May, Vatican spokesman Archbishop Silvano Maria Tomasi announced in a radio address to the United Nations Human Rights Council, "Credible research has reached the shocking conclusion that every year an estimate of more than 100,000 Christians are killed because of some relation to their faith."

How safe do you feel?  If you feel safe, know that you are in the minority in the world today.

Perhaps you are familiar with the John Donne poem “No Man is an Island,” which ends with the words:

“Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.”

His words become more meaningful if you know that the “for whom the bell tolls” line did not originate with that poem, but part of John Donne’s
“Meditation 17”, which reads in part, “'No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee....”

We might individually have problems, you and I, health problems, financial problems, family problems, but in the end they are problems with which we can deal.  Although, if we have someone to share those problems with us, we do a lot better. 

Paul pointed out that God is our great comforter, and as we endure our troubles, we receive comfort through Christ so that we know how to comfort others.   He wrote that he offered the same comfort as he had received from God.  “For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort, too,” Paul wrote.  “If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.   Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.”

Paul went on to say that he had hope for the Corinthians, for if they were partners in suffering, they would also be partners in comfort.

Lori Broschat, an elder in the United Methodist Church, tells the story of a four-year-old boy’s neighbor, an elderly man, who had recently lost his wife.  The boy saw his elderly neighbor sitting outside, weeping.  The little boy went into his neighbor’s yard, crawled up into the old man’s lap, and just sat there.  At last, the weeping stopped, and the little boy climbed down and went back into his house.  The boy’s mother had watched the scene and asked her son what he had said to the old man.

“Nothing,” said the little boy, “I just helped him cry.”

Perhaps children, in their simplicity, writes Lori Broschat, understand best the dynamics of suffering and sympathy.  Sometimes the best consolation is just being there.  And God is always there, with His concern and comfort going beyond His extension of compassionate forgiveness.  Sometimes that comfort does not take the form of taking away the pain and suffering, but instead consists of His encouragement and strength so we can endure, and learn.  One thing we should learn is that no matter how great the problem, God’s comfort is greater.

We who have benefited from His grace to us, His comfort and concern for us, we who believe in Jesus Christ, we become the agents of His comfort to others.

And Paul tells us the best way that happens in verse 11: “You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.”  Scripture teaches us that God often responds to His people only when they pray and ask.  Here we see Paul urging the Corinthian church to join with him in praying for the future deliverance of Paul and those who work with him.

For like Christ we who follow Him live under a sentence of death.  Whether we are martyred now or a live a long life, we all live under the sentence of death.  And yet like Christ, we have God’s resurrection power on our side.  We have the power of God working within and through us.  But that power does not keep us away from suffering.  Instead it empowers us to overcome, to use the power of prayer to be one with a loving God, even as we seek to be His consolation to those who are suffering.  It is for them we should be in prayer.  In our relative safety and abundance, let us be in prayer, for the safety of others, the endurance of others even as they are in danger.   As He has consoled us, so we have His example to encourage and console others, and to seek for the well-being others, in prayer, in His name.  Amen.

Hymn:  “Dear Jesus, in Whose Life I See”, by John Hunter, 1889, Public Domain; provided here for educational purposes only

1. Dear Jesus, in whose life I see
All that I would, but fail to be,
Let Thy clear light forever shine,
To shame and guide this life of mine.

2. Though what I dream and what I do
In my weak days are always two,
Help me, oppressed by things undone,
O Thou whose deeds and dreams were one!

Communion

On the night Jesus was betrayed, He took bread and He broke it, saying this is My body, given for you.  After supper He took the cup, saying this cup is the new covenant in My blood.  This do, as often as you do it, in remembrance of Me.

Benediction

My Lord, today I will make a thousand choices, big and small, consequential and trivial.  In the midst of all these decisions, help me to choose the one thing needed for a richer, more vital life in You.  Amen.

As we close the worship services today, always remember that while some have called you servants, He has called you friends.

Closing Hymn

God Be With You ‘Til We Meet Again

By Jeremiah E. Rankin

Public Domain

God be with you till we meet again,
By His counsels guide, uphold you,
With His sheep securely fold you,
God be with you till we meet again.

Refrain:
Till we meet, till we meet,
Till we meet at Jesus’ feet;
Till we meet, till we meet,
God be with you till we meet again.

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Daily Scripture Readings for August 3 - 10, 2014
Monday – Luke 10:38-42
Tuesday – Romans 8:18-25
Wednesday – 2^nd Corinthians 6:1-13
Thursday – Revelation 19:1-8
Friday – Hebrews 10:19-39
Saturday – Colossians 3:5-17
Sunday – Exodus 12:1-14; Romans 8:31-39; Psalm 143:1-10;  Matthew 14:13-21