Amen. Thank y’all. You know, as I was preparing this message and going over the readings, all these old songs that we used to sing kept coming to mind, and I was this close to sending y’all a list of songs. So maybe I’ll mention one or two of them during the message and bring back some memories. Pray with me. Lord, we praise you and we bless you, Lord, and we thank you for this time where we give ourselves to you, Lord.

Lord, I pray that you would speak through me to your people. Let my words be your words, Father. Blow away everything that’s not. In Jesus’ name, Amen. First of all, I want to say that if you’re not already doing this, it’s always good to look at the Sunday readings before you come to church on Sunday. And to do that, you can go to the website cec-na.com and go to the Resources tab at the top, and that drop-down menu has a Sunday Electionary tab.

You can click on that and it’ll show a calendar, and you just click on the Sunday for the Sunday readings. And it’s different from the daily readings, but you can click on the Sunday Electionary there. And when you open it up, it gives what’s called a collet for every Sunday. And it’s a great little short prayer written by the church to help us focus on the readings, right? And it doesn’t supersede the power of the Holy Spirit to lead you in a certain way, but it’s there as a help. And I’ll just read the collet for today to you.

It says, “Keep, O Lord, your household, the church, in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness and minister your justice with compassion, for the sake of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.” And so that sort of encapsulates, in some ways, our readings today. And it got me really to thinking about this term, “household.” And household is defined in the dictionary as those who dwell under the same roof and compose a family. Another definition is a social unit composed of those living together in the same dwelling. Now, obviously, this particular church here is a grouping and an amalgamation of different families and different households, right? But when we come together, we are one household, right?

And so we’re a family when we come together. And in many ways, we’re family when we’re apart because we care for each other and we pray for each other. And now that school is out and summer’s here, my daughters, especially this weekend, have been going out and there’s been sleepovers and Joy’s gone to her cousins and Julia went yesterday to spend the night with her cousins. And so people have been in and out. We’ve had cousins over at our house over the night. But it really struck me yesterday afternoon, Julia came home and her aunt and uncle dropped her off and I was in the office studying and I just hear the door slam and hear Julia coming down the hall and then it erupts.

And it’s like almost all of a sudden at once, everybody’s like, “Julia, you’re home. Come here and give me a hug.” You know, because I was saying that and then a split second later, Joy said that and out in the den, Ruth Ann was there. She’s like, “Julia!” And it was like the Holy Spirit was telling me that that’s the household of God. And so when we slide off from the Lord at times and then we’re brought back by the Holy Spirit, we slide back into His presence. It’s like the angels and the saints saying, “Marietta! Barb!” You know, it’s like they’re calling your name and it’s like you just get home and it’s like you’ve been missed.

You know, it’s like you’re back in the family and you’ve been missed while you’ve been gone, right? And I just thought that was just so amazing. You know, because God is such a loving Father that He realizes when we’re not at home, He realizes when we’re out not paying attention, right? It’s like the prodigal son. You know, when the prodigal son came home, the Father wrapped His arms around him and gave him everything, you know? And it just, you know, as they say down south, it just flew all over me.

(Congregation Laughing) So I want to try to talk about us being in the household of God today and how special that is and how the Lord is a loving Father and how He always calls us back to Him. And let me say that if you had a less than great household growing up, if you had a parent that was absent or an abusive parent or anything like that, God is here to say, “I love you and I am your heavenly Father and I will, like we say every year, every Sunday, I will never leave you or forsake you.” So if that resonates with you, let God in His Fatherhood heal that inside of you. Ephesians 2, 19 through 22 says, “Through Jesus, we have access to the Father. Amen.” So then you are no longer strangers and aliens. But you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone. So we are members of the household of God.

And don’t let anybody tell you different. If you’ve been saved, if you’ve accepted the Lord into your heart, if you’re living in Christ, whether perfectly or imperfectly, which most of us are imperfectly, it doesn’t matter if you’re centered or if you’re here on the fringe, you’re a member of the household of God. And He’s constantly calling you to Him. So our gospel today, Jesus is calling His disciples. He’s building the household. And so these disciples have been with Him, right?

Our gospel is from Matthew chapter 10. And it starts out, “Then Jesus summoned His 12 apostles,” not just anybody’s apostles. They were His. And whenever it says, whenever it starts out, “Then Jesus,” it makes me want to look back and say what happened before, right? To get to then. So you go back to the chapter 9 of Mark and you see what happened before.

You see a long list of miracles that Jesus performed. That His disciples witnessed the healing of the paralytic, the woman healed of the hemorrhage, the girl restored to life, the healing of the two blind men, and the healing of the mute demoniac. What a list. Imagine being able to be present to see those miracles. (P) But in chapter 10, our gospel today, Jesus gave His disciples the same power. He gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out and to cure every disease and every sickness.

How amazing. (P) So Jesus imbued His power in His disciples to do what He did. But we also see in Luke chapter 10 a reminder not to seek the power but the person of God the Father and Jesus. In Luke 10, 17 through 20, it says, “The seventy returned with joy, saying, Lord, in Your name, even the demons submit to us.” How cool is that? He said to them, “Jesus, I watch Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, all the power of the enemy, and nothing will hurt you.

Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Rejoice that you’re a member of the household of God. (P) And He names the disciples. These are not perfect men by any means. They didn’t have it all together. They weren’t well versed in theology.

They didn’t have a tremendous prayer life. In fact, they talked to the Lord and they said, “Lord, teach us how to pray.” So He commissions them. These twelve Jesus sent out in verse 5 of chapter 10 of Matthew, these twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news. The kingdom of heaven has come near.” Or other texts say, “Is it hand?” The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.

You received without payment, give without pay. You remember that old song we used to sing, “Freely, freely?” “Freely, freely you have received, freely, freely give. Go in my name, and because you believe, others may know that I live.” Wow, that’s pretty much on tune. Okay, but yeah, you received without payment, give without payment. So He sends them out, but He says, “Don’t go to the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans.” Why did He do that? Why did He say that?

He says in Matthew 15, 24, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And so why wouldn’t He go? In John 5, 19, and 30, says, “Jesus said to them, very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing on His own, but only what He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. I seek to do not my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.” So the reason He didn’t go to the Gentiles or the Samaritans, and we know this, we’ve heard it before, but it’s good to go back through it. Romans 9 says that the Israelites they to the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah.

So the Israelites come from a rich heritage, Moses and the patriarchs. And this just shows another example of the loving Father in our Old Testament reading. From Exodus 19, God says, He tells Moses to tell the Israelites this, “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.” Don’t you want to be born up on eagles’ wings and brought to the Lord? “Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples.” And He says, “Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.” And it goes on to say, the people all answered as one. Everything the Lord has spoken we will do. That word comes back to bite them, right?

Comes back to bite us too when we don’t follow through. We see that in Psalm 50. The Lord is upset with them because like we do a lot of times, our faith becomes “performative.” I don’t know if “perfunctory” is a word, but “performative.” It’s like we do sin A, so prayer B and God’s response C, and it becomes rote. It becomes ritual. It’s an outward performance. It’s not a heart matter anymore.

It says, “Here, O my people, and I will speak, O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God.” And He talks about, He doesn’t want their sacrifices anymore because the sacrifices have just become ritual, have just become, “Oh, well, this is what you do.” So they do it. And the interior part of confession and repentance and being sorry for your sin is not there because they think that the sacrifice will suffice. But He says, the Lord says, “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving.” Other texts say, “Make thanksgiving your sacrifice to God.” Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High. So if you tell the Lord you’re going to do something, you should do it. He says, “Call on me in the day of trouble.

I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” But to the wicked, God says, “What right have you to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips, for you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you.” You make friends with a thief when you see one, and you keep company with adulterers. You give your mouth free reign for evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your kin. You slander your own mother’s child. These things you have done and I have been silent. You thought that I was one just like yourself, but now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.

Mark this, then, you who forget God, or I will tear you apart, and there will be no one to deliver. Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honor me. To those who go the right way, I will show the salvation of God. So that was convicting for me when I read it. I’m sure it was for you. And we’ve done those things.

We do those things. Lord have mercy on us. But Jesus and the Lord are always wanting to draw us back to Himself because they love us. It’s a loving Father. And we know that after the resurrection, of Jesus, Jesus expanded his mission to the world. He said, “Go and make disciples of all nations,” in Matthew 28.

In the book of Acts records the spread of the word to Samaria in Acts chapter 8, and the Gentiles in Acts chapter 10. In Ephesians chapter 2, it says, verse 11, “So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth. Remember that you were at the time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for He is our peace.” Our peace doesn’t come by sacrifices that we can make. It comes from the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross. “In His flesh He has made both groups into one, and has broken down the dividing wall that is the hostility between us.” That song breaks dividing walls.

“He has broken down the dividing wall that is the hostility between us, that He might create in Himself one new humanity in place of the two.” Imagine that. You know, here we don’t have Jews and Gentiles or whatever, but we have Black people, we have White people. But in Christ, we’re His people. Amen? He made us one by His death on the cross. “That He might create in Himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.” So we are brothers and sisters of each other, and we see the Lord moving amongst us all the time.

Healing divisions, healing rifts, changing us from the inside out, changing the way we perceive other people, changing the way we perceive ourselves. Hebrews 10, verses 19-23, “Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that He opened for us through the curtain that is through His flesh. And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who is promised is faithful.” That old song, “Let us draw near to God.” So, “by the new and living way that He opened for us from the curtain that is through His flesh.” So when Christ was on the cross, His flesh was punctured, His hands, His feet, His head, His side. And at the crucifixion, the veil in the temple was torn. So in the temple, there was the Holy of Holies, which no one could go into but the high priest, and that was only once a year.

Right? And what they did, you know those little jingle bell-type bells? They sewed them to the bottom of His alb, the high priest’s alb, and they tied a rope around His ankle. And so the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies and perform the sacrifices and the prayers, right? And he would move around while he was there, and the people waiting outside would hear the bells, right? And so if they stopped hearing the bells, if the bells fell silent, their assumption was that the high priest had been struck down, and that’s where the rope comes in.

So they would pull the high priest out by the rope because nobody else could go in there. But Christ opened the Holy of Holies to us. And this veil that was in the temple was 60 feet high, 30 feet wide, and four inches thick, the thickness of a man’s hand. And when it was torn, it was torn from top down, which meant that no human being could have done that. Back to Hebrews chapter 9 this time, verses 11 and 12. “But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect tent not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, he entered once for all into the holy place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.” So we have been made members of the household of God through the shedding of Christ’s blood for us.

(Praying In The Bible) Romans chapter 5, our New Testament reading, is a wonderful passage. “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand. For while we were still A whole week, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Have you ever been weak? Isn’t it a great thing that we don’t have to have it all together for Christ to call us back, to call us to Himself? That we’re all weak.

At the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. And God proves His love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That’s the love of a Father. That’s the love of a God that loves you and me. That’s the love that, praise God, we carry around in ourselves, hopefully. And that’s the love that the Lord can redeem in us and use to change our interior nature, from being so overwhelmed with our sins and the fact that we don’t measure up, to say, “I love you as you are, and I’m still willing to come inside of you, and to be with you, and to live in your mess, and help you with it.” And that’s what we experience when we come to the altar rail.

That’s what we experience when we see Father Mark hold His hands over these elements.