Lent3: Rehab: Program

• Third Sunday of Lent

with Exodus 20:1-17

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This sermon was broadcast on Facebook Live 3/04/18 https://www.facebook.com/FUMCWV/ and can also be found by itself at https://youtu.be/H50mEhKBT04

#rehab #program #umcgbod #lent

• Lent is a 40 day season of spiritual preparation before the Easter celebration.

This season we’ll be following the lectionary and the denomination’s suggestion for a sermon series called REHAB. Why REHAB? As a part of our spiritual preparation before the Easter celebration. Last week talked about the need to have our thinking interrupted – have an intervention – to follow Jesus into the wilderness of rehab, open to the possibility that in the prayer, fasting, self-denial of the desert, and even in the face of pain, discomfort, and suffering, God can be working in us, God may in fact need the focus of the desert for us to be positioned for healing.

• One of my favorite words is grace. Unmerited favor. It literally means “gift”. God gives grace not because of who we are but because of who God is. God gives us the gifts of life and even the means of reconciliation when we choose away from God. God says I give you the means to avoid and triumph over that kind of living that leads to brokenness and death. I give you the building blocks of character and community living. Teach honor, respect, live within means. Guide relationship & be light to world.

• The grace we’ll talk about first today is the ten commandments 10C. Common, perhaps quaint, not earth-shattering, unless you consider they’re given by the Maker of Matter, to people, as a guide, a program how to live, in relationship to God and in relationship to each other. We read in Deuteronomy they’re given “so that it may go well with you.” Live this way and live.

Use the 10C to consider questions of today. How can I keep the Sabbath holy while harboring hidden sin? Lust, a grudge, some barrier between me and thee?

Consider the 10C to weigh whether a situation calls for laying down or picking up of arms, to stand on principle of sacredness of life or to carry same principle another step to prevent the loss of another life?

Do the homework, with prayer and fasting and self-examination.

• Early Methodist holiness club held each other accountable.
They’d ask How is it with your soul, have you any known sins…

Also Do you expect to be made perfect in this life?
And they’d answer Yes. By grace of God. Not by our own ability but by God in us.

• Consider the 10C as a format for wellness, a program for recovery.
Do this that it may go well with you.
We are invited to participate in God’s holiness/wholeness program.

• And in holy communion Jesus invites us to participate in his saving act and giving of grace.

• May God use this time of Lent to shape us into disciples and witnesses to God’s kingdom.

• Hymn 616 Come, Sinners, to the Gospel Feast

A Responsive Reading on Exodus 20:1-17

(adapted from Book of Worship, abridged from The Book of Common Prayer)

Leader: God spoke from the mountain and said:
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;
you shall have no other gods before me.”

Almighty God, write your law upon our hearts,
and help us to keep it.

“You shall not make for yourself an idol.
You shall not make wrongful use
    of the name of the Lord your God.
Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.”

Almighty God, write your law upon our hearts,
and help us to keep it.

 “Honor your father and your mother.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness.
You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

Almighty God, write your law upon our hearts,
and help us to keep it.

Silence

Sung Response 473: Lead me, Lord. Lead me in thy righteousness. Make thy way plain before my face. For it is thou, Lord, thou, Lord only, that makest me dwell in safety.

Pastor: In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven. Sin no more.
People: In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven. Sin no more. Glory to God! Amen!

Pastor: The peace of Christ rule in your hearts and reign in our midst.