Sunday 5 May 2024
6th Sunday of Easter
Welcome!
We know not everyone who is part of Westwood Church is able to be in church on Sunday morning however, we thought it would be good to offer some excerpts from the Sunday morning service. Where we can, we offer parts of the service in text and audio, whichever works best for you. If you want to plug in headphones to your computer, tablet or mobile phone now is a good time to do it ! If you want to offer some comment or feedback just use the comment box at the end of this post.
Scripture
Acts 10: 44 – 38
John 15: 5 – 17
Praise – Praise my soul
Prayers
Almighty and Eternal God, through your Word and the movement of your Spirit you created all things. In Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, you revealed your salvation to all the world. Through your Holy Spirit, you give us the fullness of your life and love. Keep us firm in this faith, and fill us with the vision of your glory, that we may serve and praise you all our days.
Let us remember and feel the presence of God with us now and lift up our hearts to God the Father to whom we pray, God the Son through whom we pray, God the Holy Spirit in whom we pray.
United with you through your sacrificial death, baptised into your death and rising again, we who have been baptised with water and the Holy Spirit rejoice in all that you have done for us. You have taken all our fault and shame and exchanged it for love and joy and peace.
Loving God, be near to us in this time of worship; open our ears to hear your voice; open our hearts to receive your grace; open our lips to sing your praise; for the sake of Jesus Christ our Saviour, who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
We come to you Lord to give of ourselves to you, for you have gladly, through pain and sacrifice, given of yourself to us. Yet, to us, what we bring seems small in comparison to your immense sacrifice; until we remember the widow who offered one small coin, she gave what she had, she gave from her heart, and for you that was enough, more than enough. The sincere and loving heart is all you ask from us.
Hear us as we join in the words of the Lord’s Prayer saying…
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 debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory forever. Amen.
Address
There’s a song in Mission Praise which perhaps you know; “You are the Vine, we are the branches, keep us abiding in you”. Quite often it is sung at the occasion of Baptism as those words express for us that sense of being one with Christ, being made one with Christ through His undying love for us. The sense of abiding in Christ sounds blissful, peaceful, reassuring and wonderful.
And, when we flip across to the passage from Acts, which may at first sight seem to be focussed on a totally different subject, that of baptism, maybe it comes to dawn on us that these two passages actually dovetail into each other in a marvellous way. How else are we to abide in Christ other than through the gift and sacrament of baptism? In our dying and rising with Christ.
A Sacrament is a meeting place between us and our God, in which God is always present, in which God always acts, in which God always imparts His gift of the Holy Spirit. Our God may have at His disposal many other ways of imparting His gifts to us which may be far more spontaneous than anything we traditionally do in church at the Lord’s Supper or Baptism; events that we plan and prepare for, that may occur in regular seasons and times; they are not spontaneous. But that does not diminish what we celebrate in our sacraments. When the Gentiles received the gift of the Holy Spirit in Acts Chp 10 God acted spontaneously, God broke the rules, challenged our understanding of who He is and how He works in and through us.
The events of Acts Chp 10 clearly come as a surprise to Peter and to the Jewish believers who had travelled with him from Joppa. The Holy Spirit comes down upon all those who were listening to Peter’s message, amongst them are Gentiles who speak in tongues and praise God’s name, a sure sign that God’s Spirit has come upon them. And Peter cannot deny that God has done something new, something unheard of, God has broken the rules or at least God has changed the rules. And what ensues is a time of discussion, argument, even division in the early church as to what all this means. Did Jesus come just for the Jews, did he come for all people Jews and Gentiles alike, should Gentiles be circumcised and brought into the Jewish faith or was faith in Christ Jesus blossoming into something entirely new? Peter was, absolutely, held to account by the early church for his actions in baptising with water, in the name of Jesus Christ, those Gentiles who had received God’s Spirit. And at the end of the day, they recognised that God was doing something new and they had to go with it.
Maybe that’s what it means to abide in Christ; to recognise when God is doing something new and go with it. We all live our lives within certain structures, patterns of work and leisure, church on a Sunday. There are rules and norms that we follow every day without even thinking about it. God is with us through all the normal stuff of life, the endlessly repeating patterns that sometimes we grow weary of. But we must also wrestle with the knowledge that our God can be spontaneous; our God can change the direction of our lives in the most unexpected way, at the most unexpected moment. All of us who have been baptised in the name of Christ and received the gift of the Holy Spirit live in anticipation of the new thing that He calls us to. Abiding in Christ isn’t just about resting and relaxing; it’s also about the eager excitement and anticipation of where God may take us next; we who are baptised with water in the name of Christ and filled with the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Praise – Blessed Assurance
Prayers for Others
God of love, in whom we abide in love, with whom we serve in love, by whom we love one another, we bring our prayers for others, for our world, for our nation and for our neighbours.
The Scottish Parliament
Lord and God, we uphold in our prayer the future of the Scottish Parliament and the future of politics in Scotland. Following the resignation of Humza Yousaf as Leader a new level of uncertainty follows; a new leader to be elected and what will they bring to that role and where will allegiances and power-sharing lie in the future. And all this at a time when a General Election is somewhere on the horizon. Father God we may pray for a quick resolution when really, we need a wise resolution, an eye to the future and a sense of progress. Lord hear our prayers…
Knife Crime
Lord and God, it is hard for us to understand, to put our finger on what has changed or is changing in society. When we see knifes and swords being used in attacks upon individuals, when we see a rise in abuse of retail staff, when we see a rise in assaults upon NHS staff, and upon police and other emergency services. Something has changed in people since the pandemic, we have not simply returned to who or what we were before. We are more frightened, more anxious and tense, we find it more difficult to get help, we are a little more lost, divided, isolated than we were. It could be a multitude of things, small things that have changed which for some has tipped the balance. How do we respond Lord? Do we need more laws and enforcement in society? Or do we need more compassion and care? Do we need to be spoken to or do we need to be listened to? Lord, we remember those whose lives have been turned upside down by knife crime…
We pray, God of love, in one breath lamenting situations that seem far beyond our control, and in the next breath expressing joyful hope, for You lead us, a resurrection people, into the future, abiding in Your love. May we, inspired by Your love for us, be the people who transform this world, bringing in the Kingdom, one act of faithful service at a time. AMEN.
Praise – To God be the glory
The Grace
And now… May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you and all whom you love, now and for evermore. AMEN.
A very moving service lots to think about .