The Bethany Bullet Sermon Message - Week of May 24, 2020

Link to Worship Video for 5/24/20 – HERE

*If unable to open link copy/paste this into your browser: http://www.bethanylutheran.org/worship-service-resources/

*Direct link to Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/421703794

Link for printing Sunday’s Bulletin for 5/24/20 – HERE

*If unable to open link copy/paste this into your browser:  http://216716c740411890a61b-baadebb03584b8c460640ee327586b9d.r93.cf2.rackcdn.com/uploaded/b/0e10447808_1590244147_bulletin--ascension-2020.pdf

Link to Bible Discovery Resources for 5/24/20 – HERE

*If unable to open link copy/paste this into your browser:

http://www.bethanylutheran.org/bible-discovery-resources/

#Alwaysbeenessential

The Church (that entity of which by faith we are a member, and in which we with her members confess our faith as we recite the Creeds - “...we believe in the holy catholic Church) is, has been and until Jesus returns ever shall be essential.  Our Lord has no “plan b” in how He will reach the world.  The world is dying to be reached, even if it does not admit, recognize nor desire it.  Jesus, His loving and forgiving grace, is the only cure to the ultimate pandemic of sin and the church is the way He has determined to “distribute” the cure.

At His Ascension He declared that they, His followers, would “proclaim forgiveness in His name”; and then He commissioned them to “Go and Make.”  The church is, has been and until He returns ever shall be essential.  Yet, the manner in which it has gathered for worship has been malleable.  The church has gathered to worship in a garden and in the desert.  The church gathered to worship in their homes when enslaved in Egypt and held captive in Babylon.  The church, in one individual, worshipped on the mountain, while the people committed idolatry on the plan.  The church worshipped in a tent before it had a solid structure.  It worshipped in a stable, led by those who many thought didn’t even belong and yet were joined w angels, archangels and the company of heaven.  The church worshipped in an upper room and later behind locked doors.  Yet she was, is, even as she shall be, essential, #alwaysbeenessential.

It is through her (read you, me, us) that His hands work in our world, His heart is experience, His thoughts learned, His voice heard, His goodness, grace, love and life...yes, He Himself received.

This church gathers to give Him what He deserves, (our praise and prayers, our gifts and all the glory) and to receive the freedom only He could secure and only He can give.  Freedom from sin’s guilt, satan’s guile, and the sod’s grip. This freedom He bestowed on equal measure to His church whether it was enslaved, held captive, huddled behind locked doors or compromised of every human that walked the earth when it worshipped in a garden, the king and an entire country as it worshipped in a land of promise, or His own flesh and blood as they sang the Magnificat in the hill country.

Of course, it goes without saying that our worship as a congregation has been malleable as of late.  As we near a return to on campus worship (we are nearer now than when we first suspended on campus worship) it should also go without saying that it’ll be malleable.  When we return to some form of on campus worship in the nearing future, it shall I’m sure, from week to week, month to month undoubtedly change, shift and alter.  For the manner in which we gather to give God what He deserves and receive from the Lord that which He alone can give is, as it has ever been, malleable.  We however, the church, have #alwaysbeenessential for we are the means through which He intends to connect His unchanging love to an ever changing world.

-Pr. Kevin Kritzer

Worship Resources for Sunday, May 31^st 

will be up on Bethany’s website (www.bethanylutheran.org)

by midday Saturday, May 30^th!