Sermon for April 29th, 2018
Luke 24:50-53
50 Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. 51 While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. 52 And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; 53 and they were continually in the temple blessing God.
John 4:19-24
19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
FPC Worship is Honest
For the past several weeks we've been talking about Worship here at First Presbyterian Church, using the acronym WORSHIP, which stands for Welcoming, Orderly, Reformed, Honest, Intelligent, and Public.
Today, we're focusing on the H, for Honest. And so I'm reminded of the story of the Honest Wife, who was on her way home one night with her husband, and the husband (who is driving) gets pulled over by the police. The officer tells the husband that he was stopped because his tail light was burned out, to which he replies, "I'm very sorry officer, I didn't realize it was out, I'll get it fixed right away." Just then his wife speaks up and says, "I knew this would happen when I told you two days ago to get that light fixed."
So the officer asks for the husband's license, and after looking at it says, "Sir your license has expired." Once again, the husband apologizes and mentions that he didn't realize that it had expired and that he would take care of it first thing in the morning.
The honest wife interjects, saying, "I told you a week ago that you got a letter from the state of Texas, telling you that your license had expired."
Well by this time, the husband is quite upset with his wife contradicting him in front of the officer. He turns to her, and in a rather loud voice says, "Will you just shut up for once??" At this, the officer leans over toward the wife and asks, "Does your husband always talk to you like that?"
With a steely gaze, the honest wife calmly replies, "Only when he's drunk, officer. Only when he's drunk."
Honesty can be brutal at times.
Honest worship means:
1. We're not afraid to talk about difficult things
2. We're not afraid to say "I don't know."
3. We're not afraid to say, "Maybe we were wrong."
