ORDER OF WORSHIP

“Because He First Loved Me”

I Corinthians 12:3b & I John 4:19

· Bring greetings, etc.

Read Texts: … no one can ever say, “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.

We love God because he first loved us.

[Prayer]

O how I love Jesus.

Because he first loved me.

I am living proof that God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform. Of course, in my case it’s more appropriate to say that God often draws a straight line with a crooked stick. As that long-ago prophet, Jonah found out, you can run but you can’t hide. If God wants you somewhere, that’s where you’ll go no matter how much zigging and zagging you might do.

Some examples: In 1969 I felt the first twinges of calling to ordained ministry. My response: “That will never happen. My life is already mapped out: finish college, teach school for two years, and then open my own business.” That’s what I told myself in 1969. Four years later I enrolled in seminary. Eight years later I was ordained. Forty-one years later I’m still doing that ministry that I swore I would never do.

Years later I met my wife-to-be Sandy. On our first date we both swore that we did not want to get married. Eighteen months later we became the married couple that we still are today.

Almost six years ago, as Sandy and I drove to Lanham, Maryland to interview with the Pastoral Nominating Committee of Grace Presbyterian Church, we came close to calling the committee to tell them that we had changed our minds and that we did not want to meet with them under false pretenses. There was no way that we were going to live near Washington, DC. In August of 2004 I became the pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Lanham, Maryland.

Even then we had no way of knowing that a mostly white congregation would become a full-blown multicultural congregation whose membership is almost two-thirds Cameroonian. Or that I would enjoy being a multi-cultural pastor as much as I do. Or that I would come to love pepper soup and chin-chin. And I never dreamed that one day I would be preaching to a congregation in Cameroon.

God has a most wonderful sense of humor. I said that I would never be a pastor. God said, “We’ll see about that.” I swore that I wasn’t going to get married. God laughed. I absolutely refused to seriously entertain the notion of living near Washington, DC. God laughed even louder. I never dreamed of being a multi-cultural pastor or coming to Cameroon. I didn’t need to. God was already dreaming that dream for me. And so it is that forty years later that twenty year old boy who never wanted to be a pastor is standing here preaching to you this morning. And in the background God is laughing louder than ever.

I’m not here just because I want to be. I’m here because being here is what God wants. And what God wants, God makes happen. By the power of his Holy Spirit God moved me to profess Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. By the power of the Holy Spirit God led me into ministry. By the power of the Holy Spirit God introduced me to the good Christians of Cameroon. By the power of the Holy Spirit I am preaching this sermon… to you… in Cameroon.

In Philippians 4:13 Paul wrote: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” How true that is, but just as true is this: without him I can do nothing. I couldn’t be a Christian or a minister or a husband. I could never find the courage to hop on an airplane, visit a distant nation with a culture so different from my own, and stand up in front of a congregation of strangers and preach God’s Word. More than that, I could never have moved beyond the racial prejudices of my childhood to feel so at home with people whose skin is so much darker than mine. Apart from the God made known in Jesus Christ I could never call you brothers and sisters – or love you – or even love God.

We love God because he first loved us. Because he first loved us we can love one another. Because he first loved us we can let go of the fears that get in the way of our ministry. Because he first loved us we can outgrow those prejudices that stand between us and other people. Because he first loved us we can find grace, mercy, and forgiveness. Because he first loved us we can be gracious and merciful to others. We can forgive those who trespass against us. Because he first loved us we can step out in faith onto unfamiliar paths that lead us to “God-only-knows-where.” Because he first loved us we can sing the words of “O How I Love Jesus” and “Jesus Loves Me This I Know,” and we can sing them no matter what our circumstances might be – even if we are staring death in the face.

Several years ago I heard a speaker talk about what he wanted and needed to hear when the time came for him to lay on his deathbed. He didn’t want to hear the sentimental babblings of those who doubted the reality of resurrection. He didn’t want to receive psychotherapy. He didn’t want to be counseled. He wanted to hear about the sweet, sweet, wonderful love of Jesus. Or as one of my favorite hymns describes it, “the old, old story of Jesus and his love.”

Nowhere is this old, old story better told than in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, so that whoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Or John 1:14: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Or Philippians 2:6-8: “… who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.” Or Isaiah 53:5: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.”

That is how much God loves us. And what does he ask in return? That we love him with all our heart and all our soul and with all our mind; and that we love our neighbors as ourselves. On the night before he died on a cross our Savior gave his disciples a new commandment: love one another. Because he first loved us we are able to love him and each other. We are able to love our neighbor. We are able to transcend all barriers that keep us apart.

By grace we are given the ability to love God and neighbor. By the power of the Holy Spirit we are empowered to love God and neighbor. And having the ability and power to love God and neighbor we are compelled – by love – to display our love of God by obeying him and serving our neighbor. We are compelled to go places we might not want to go and do things we might not want to do. We are compelled to confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and follow in his footsteps to wherever they might lead us: maybe to seminary, maybe to Washington, DC, maybe to Cameroon, and maybe even to a cross.

Every Communion Sunday we follow Jesus to his very own table, the Table of the Lord. Every Christian of every time and place has his or her very own seat at the Table of our Lord. Our Lord Jesus wants each and every one of us to take that seat and with him, by the power of the Holy Spirit, celebrate the Lord’s Supper. He wants us to do this in his memory. He wants us to it on a regular basis until he comes again.

When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper at Grace Presbyterian Church I sometimes remind the congregation that our seat at the Lord’s Table is ours by invitation only. We cannot buy a seat at his Table. We cannot earn it. No human being, human institution, or human power can claim that seat for us. It’s is ours because Jesus Christ himself has invited us to it.

Why does our Lord issue such an invitation? Because he loved is before we could ever love him. He loves us with a love that will not let us go. He wants us at his Table. He wants us to join him at that great heavenly banquet when the old has truly passed away and the eternal new has come into being. By the way, we get into that banquet by invitation only: the gracious, merciful, loving invitation of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

I know that when I take my seat at that heavenly Table it will not be because I’m perfect, but in spite of the fact that I’m not. God is going to admit me into that banquet even though I have been a timid disciple and disobedient servant. He will admit me even though I have so often resisted his call and as is sometimes the case, obeyed him begrudgingly. He will admit me despite all the times I’ve tried to run away from him or refused to listen to him.

I can run but I cannot hide. God claims me and chases after me not because I first loved him, but because he first loved me.

O how I love Jesus.

Because he first loved me.

And all God’s people said, “Amen!”