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Announcements

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Sunday’s Readings

(Please click on the readings to read this past weeks lessons online.)

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Message

Children’s Song: “Put God First”
- Allen Williams
Children’s Message: “Practice what you Preach”
- Byron Peterson

- Lowell Sheppard

Points from the sermon that stuck with me:
(Points from Lowell’s powerpoint are in italics.)

Today, Lowell’s sermon focused on the Gospel reading from Matthew.

In today’s Gospel reading Jesus is attacking hypocrisy – saying one thing yet doing another. Jesus was very angry when he spoke about the Pharisees in verses 5-7, and later again when he speaks the ‘woes to the Pharisees’ in verses 13-39.

The kingdom of this world – not the kingdom of God – works around and sometimes requires pretense and power. This is not like God’s kingdom. In the business world, it is not considered good to show all your cards. It is considered best to withhold things and conceal somethings. People in this world are so often seeking and wanting more power.

But Jesus is about giving away power. His kingdom sometimes seems to be an upside down kingdom. This, however, is the type of life Jesus calls us to live. One that is lived in transparency. One that is vulnerable. One that puts us at risk.

In Greek, Hypocresis means ‘actor’ or ‘mask’ because Greek plays used to have few actors so they would change roles by merely changing masks. God calls us to take off our masks and to be real to ourselves; to make ourselves vulnerable.

The problem with rules is that they can be used to violate the Godly instinct we have been given -love God, love your neighbor as yourself. We can sometimes use rules to justify doing things that we know is actually not alright.

God’s grace was extended to us all, even though He knew everything from the beginning. We should hide nothing; for nothing is hidden from God. Plus, we should be authentic and transparent in our lives with other people as well. This transparency will bring us to emotional health.

Jesus seems to point out that there is plenty of room in God’s kingdom for sinners. However, there is not room for hypocrisy.

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Attendance

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Words from the Admin

Just as a reminder, Sunday school is prior to the service – starting at 4:00pm – and following the service we have fellowship – complete with drinks and snacks – sometimes even home-baked goodies! So please join us this coming Sunday, November 6th at 9:00am or 5:00pm.

This quarter we were blessed with more attendees than at our summer Evensong. We had a total of 12 people join together in.

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Songs led by the band:

“May all the World”
– written by John Janzen

“I Give Thanks”

“Amazing Grace”

A Reading by Sara

Performance and thoughts of thanksgiving by Yoshi
“Amazing Grace”
“Jesus Loves Me”
– played on the kokyū

Songs led by the band:

“Holy Holy Holy Lord”

“I’d Rather Have Jesus”

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For those who were able to join us, may this time have left you feeling full of thanksgiving to our Lord. For those who could not be with us in body, may the Lord continue to bless you this autumn.

Please join us for our next Evensong this winter.

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Announcements

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Sunday’s Readings

(Please click on the readings to read this past weeks lessons online.)

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Message

Children’s Song: “Jesus Loves Me”
- Byron Peterson
Children’s Message: “The Two Most Important Laws”
- Byron Peterson

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus tells us that the two most important commandments are to love God and to love our neighbor.

- Lowell Sheppard

Points from the sermon that stuck with me:
(Points from Lowell’s powerpoint are in italics.)

Today, Lowell’s sermon focused on the Gospel reading from Matthew.

The Pharisees try again to trip Jesus up by getting a lawyer. Just like every other time, however, Jesus simply used it as an opportunity to convey the truth.

Another way to look at agape love is that it is a combination of eros and philial love. This is because agape love is passionate but it is also affectionate. In a way, it can be called thoughtful affection.

We are made in God’s image. And God is love. This, we are called to be who we really are made to be. We are called to action – agape. A love that is costly because we are called into action by it and it comes to define what we do. It is not just simply a feeling.

C.S. Lewis said, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

And Jesus does call us to care; to see and understand what affects God and let it affect us. Thus, agape is to orientate yourself to the way of God’s mercy. We have the capacity to love others the way that God loves us.

The last point was on assumption. Jesus calls us to the two greatest commandments: Love God and love our neighbors. Or, to “love your neighbor as yourself.” This assumes that we love ourselves because Jesus at no point tells us to love ourselves, but does tell us to love others as we love ourselves.

We all need to repent, but if we orient ourselves back towards God, and we come to see ourselves as God sees us, we can see our own greatness despite our failures. God comes to us. Calls us by name. He bestows value unto each of us. We are made in His image and He gives us purpose and value.

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Attendance

– John and Nadith

Thank you for coming to worship with us.

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Words from the Admin

Just as a reminder, Sunday school is prior to the service – starting at 4:00pm – and following the service we have fellowship – complete with drinks and snacks – sometimes even home-baked goodies! So please join us this coming Sunday, October 30th for worship and Autumn Evensong