Welcome and Announcements:
Welcome to Shawnee Heights United Methodist Church. Happy Mothers’ Day.
I am Bob Resnik, your Lay Servant, which means I represent you on several church committees and at the Annual Great Plains Conference meeting.
Cecelia and I started coming to this church when we were dating and Cecelia’s son was dating Bill Clemmons’ granddaughter Dylan. Pastor Sandy was here then. We left for a short time, then came back shortly after Pastor Judy started. We then joined this church and got married here.
I am sure that several of you are thinking, if I can stand up here and lead this service why don’t you see me doing some of the readings. That’s a fair question. It is because unless I practice a lot I don’t read well. In school I was taught to sight read, with no phonics. Plus I have dyslexia so sometime I see words backwards or will skip words all together. So if I see a word that starts with S H O I could think it is show, or should or even miss the first and think would. This doesn’t make for a good reader.
The announcements I have; Harvesters will be next Saturday at 2 o’clock. If you are volunteering please be here by 1.
Does anyone have any other announcements?
Song of Praise:
Please stand, as you are able, to sing “I Come with Joy” (#617 verses 1, 3 & 4)
You may have a seat.
Our Mother’s Day Prayer:
Please join me in “Our Mother’s Day Prayer”:
O loving creating God, especially this day we give you thanks for those who gave us life, loved us, blessed us, corrected us and on most days endured our questions, complaining and missteps. Thank you for our mothers.
We are so grateful for motherly love, gentle and fierce, bold and humble, compassionate and judgmental. It is that complicated dedicated love that continues to shape us. O God bless all the mothers in our lives. Empower and strengthen them with your love. Comfort those mothers who lost a child to death, or to complicated circumstances. Help the mothers struggling to provide health care, enough food and safe shelter for their children. And this day, O God of endless comfort and possibilities, surround the many women who painfully wonder if and when they will become a mother with your love.
O God, do bless the mothers of our lives, regardless of what they may have done or left undone. May each of them and all of us be strengthened by your motherly love and acceptance. Help us all grow to be your love. Amen.
Our Musical Response:
Join in singing “The Summons” (#2130 verses 1 & 4)
Silent Prayer & Morning Prayer (Followed by the Lord’s Prayer):
Ladonna Grindol who broke a vertebrae please keep Ladonna and Ben and their family in your prayers for healing.
Carrie and Hap Rutherford request prayers for their son John and his family. He is being deployed to Guam shortly. Please pray for John’s safety.
Bernadine Boyer reports her good friend Debbie, passed away. Please pray for peace for Debbie’s family.
This is how Cecelia and I end our meal time prayer that I want to offer now:
O loving God give special peace to those families that have lost loved ones. Watch over those that are ill and those taking care of them give them the strength to heal, in Jesus name we pray. Amen
Join me in praying. 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 trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
A Time with Our Children:
(Hand out coloring sheet & crayons)
God loved the people of Israel so much he gave them rules to live by. We call these rules the 10 Commandments. God want the people to remember them so he wrote them on two stone tablets. Moses was on Mount Sinai worshiping God when God gave him these two tablets. These coloring sheets I gave you lists these 10 commandments in a way you can understand.
Then Jesus made it easier for us to remember. Jesus told us in the Bible that we are to love God with our whole heart, with our whole mind and in everything we do. Then He told us that we are to love other people just like God loves us.
You love your mother, don’t you? How are you going to show her that you love her this Mothers’ Day?
There are kids you really like, right? Are there some kids you don’t like?
You know Jesus tells us that we are to like everyone, even the kids that are mean to us. Jesus knew it would be hard to love everyone. Jesus told us that we can pray to Him anytime for help to love even the people that are hard to love. We need to remember that Jesus loves us and He loves the kids that are mean to us too. So if, Jesus can love them we should too.
May we pray? Loving God we pray for these children and for those children that have lost their mothers. Show them that there is love around them in others that are there to help them. Watch over them, give them strength and help them find the love of Jesus that is within them.
And all of God’s people said – Amen!
You may go sit with your parents
Song of Preparation “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy” (121 vs 1, 3, & 4
Scripture Reading – John 15: 9-17:
9 “As the Father loved me, I too have loved you. Remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. 11 I have said these things to you so that my joy will be in you and your joy will be complete. 12 This is my commandment: love each other just as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than to give up one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I don’t call you servants any longer, because servants don’t know what their master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because everything I heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You didn’t choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you could go and produce fruit and so that your fruit could last. As a result, whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. 17 I give you these commandments so that you can love each other.
Sermon:
We are commanded to Love!
Jesus says in verse 10 of today’s reading, “If you keep my Commandments, you will remain in my Love.” What are his Commandments?
Jesus tells us The Greatest Commandment in Matthew 22, Mark 12 and Luke 10. The first part is “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind.” With this love of God you will fulfill the first 4 of the 10 Commandments given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai. As listed on the children’s coloring sheet “Love God with all your heart, do not let anything become more important than God, respect God’s name and honor God by resting on Sunday.
Jesus’ Second part of The Greatest Commandment was “You must love your neighbor as you love yourself.” This will fulfill the last 6 of the 10 commandments; Love your parents, do not hurt anyone, be faithful to your husband or wife, do not steal, always tell the truth and do not want what others have.
Jesus did not do away with the 10 commandments that God gave Moses, He just summarized them for us. But how do we follow this Greatest Commandment that Jesus gave us?
Join me as I pray. Oh loving God help me prepare a way for your love to take over the world. Let me love the way you love by teaching me to love the way that Jesus loved. Help me show your love to others. Use me as a way in expanding love throughout the world. Please keep me out of your way as you spread your love. Amen
The love Jesus is telling us about is not the kind of love I expressed to my son 3 days before he took his life, nor the kind of love that I have for my 3 remaining children that are now adults. Nor is it the kind of love I have for my wonderful wife.
This congregation showed me the kind of love Jesus was commanding on April 6th, 2014. I received one of those calls parents never want to get. My son Brian had left a note on the coffee table and his wife found it about midnight. She called and I went to be with her. The police and sheriff’s departments were out looking for him, hoping to prevent him from taking his life. They couldn’t find him. The Jackson County sheriff contacted a good friend of Brian’s, he too found a letter that made him think of a place Brian loved to use as a hunting spot. The sheriff checked the spot out and found Brian. Brian’s wife was contacted about 7 Sunday morning. I went home to cry and to call Cecelia, who was out of town. Then I came here.
Pastor Judy was on vacation so we had a retired preacher presiding. I just couldn’t go in to the sanctuary so I stayed in Pastor Judy’s office. When the visiting pastor was done he came into the office and we talked. When we were done I walked out to go back home. Well, Berry Wilt was standing there, saw me, and knew something was terribly wrong, then he walked over and hugged me. Then others, some no longer here, did the same thing. I was surrounded by unconditional love.
Boy, was I glad I had told Brian just 3 days before that I loved him. Even thought he was surrounded by his friends and was a little embarrassed. These were the last words my son heard from me.
I love all of you regardless of where you came from, what you do or did for a living. But, you see most of you are similar to me, more or less relatively conservative and we have the same religion. So it isn’t quite that unconditional love that Jesus was telling us about. Jesus was talking about the love the ancient Greeks called agapē love. The kind of love that is perfect unconditional love. The kind of love God has for all of us.
We are to love God with this agapē love with our whole hearts and minds and in all that we do.
And this is how we are to love our neighbor. Now you may ask, who is my neighbor? Is it the people that live next to me? Or all the people that live in my neighborhood? Is it my friends on Facebook or the people I follow on Instagram? The answer is yes, but it doesn’t stop there. We are to love all the people of the world!
Now you may think; but I don’t know all the people of the world! You don’t and you can’t. But when you encounter one of them you are not to worry about the color of their skin, the way they wear their clothes, the language they speak. You don’t even worry if they are here legally or what religious practice they follow. Jesus says we are to show them love and compassion. Let’s all remember the story of the Good Samaritan.
We are told about The Good Samaritan, in Luke 10, who took care of his injured enemy that was a neighbor from another county. A person that the Samaritan would normally not even talk to. Jesus taught us to love even our enemy over and over. He told us to forgive our oppressor and to turn the other cheek to the person that strikes us. Now that takes a level of love that I have not obtained and most likely never will. But, I pray that every day I will get closer to being able to love like that.
For us to work toward the ability to love like that. We first must learn how to love ourselves and to take care of ourselves. We take care of ourselves by being around people that love other people. We also help ourselves by choosing to be around people that are always uplifting and only saying positive things about other. Remember the movie “Bambi” there was a little rabbit named Thumper. Thumper was teasing Bambi and his mother told him; “If you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all.” These are the type of people we need to be around. We should try to avoid the kind of people that are always putting someone down or talking about what others are doing.
Now I know there are some people that have been so badly hurt in the past they just can’t pull themselves out of the negative thinking. We are not to abandon them. We need to love them just as Jesus does, but they need more help than what we can give. They may need professional help that we are to encourage and support. Seeking help would be their way of taking care of themselves.
Jesus said in verse 16 of today’s reading, “I chose you and appointed you so that you could go and produce fruit and so that your fruit could last.” I think Jesus was telling us to take that love we have and do something good with it.
What is the fruit Jesus was referring to? Is He talking about evangelism, where we bring people in to our church? Maybe, but I don’t think that is all of it, I think He is telling us to show our unconditional love to others so that they believe in Him. Now that could lead to people joining us or to join with others, but I think it’s about leading people to learn more about Jesus, from the Bible, from the internet, from others or from a preacher. First and foremost the important thing is showing people that we unconditionally love them.
What are some of the ways we can show this unconditional love? I think some of the ways are, with a sincere loving attitude, help at Harvesters, or I-Care, or the YWCA Center for Safety and Empowerment, or Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts or many, many, more.
What about right here at our church! Our church is run by committees that support our mission of “Embrace God’s Love • Respond with love for all • Grow our faith • Serve the needs of others”. These committees need your love and presence.
Or, if you are not able to physically help you can support those that can by uplifting them in prayers, writing letters or sending short little notes of encouragement to them.
Remember Jesus said; “You didn’t choose me, but I chose you”
By the way my wife reminded me that fixing my supper, even when she is upset with me, is showing unconditional love too.
(Take a seat)
Our Invitation to Respond:
It is a commandment. We are to love. We are to love in tangible ways that continue to transform our world and bring God’s Kingdom to reality. May the gifts we present this day empower ministries of healing and hope! May our love for others, even those we do not know, be a reflection of God’s love for us.
Song of Commitment:
Dedicated to our mothers, in love and gratitude
“I Get to be the One” by JJ Heller
(About ½ way through give a sign to stand)
Blessing and Sending Out:
Jesus models true friendship by sharing with us all the love He has. We must not hoard this love but to reach out to others who are starved of love. Because He chooses to love others through us, we have much to do.
Music Sends Us Out:
“They’ll Know We are Christians by our Love” By King and Country
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