Speaker Identification

Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Liturgist: Leads the welcome, church announcements, confession, assurance, congregational prayer, and children's message. The transcript does not provide the speaker's name.

Speaker 2 - Congregation / Choir / Musicians: Represents congregational responses, hymns, sung prayers, and instrumental or choral music sections. Many sung portions were heavily garbled by automated transcription and are identified only where the words were not recoverable.

Speaker 3 - Scripture Reader / Guest Preacher: Reads Hebrews 10:26-31 and preaches the sermon. The service welcome identifies the preacher as Pastor Sean England, a commissioned pastor in the Christian Reformed Church, but the transcript does not explicitly restate the name at the start of the sermon.

Speaker 2 - Congregation / Choir / Musicians:
[Opening music and congregational singing. The automated transcript contained a long repeated garbled phrase that could not be reliably reconstructed.]

Speaker 2 - Congregation / Choir / Musicians:
For the living of creation, for Christ rising from death's hold, for the coming of the Spirit, week by week, claimed and retold.

By this ancient living witness, we are summoned to confess how we fall short, yet can trust that God will hear, forgive, and bless.

[Additional congregational singing. The automated transcript was heavily garbled and could not be confidently reconstructed.]

Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Liturgist:
Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, through the mighty and transforming work of the Holy Spirit.

We welcome all of you to worship this morning at LaGrave Avenue Christian Reformed Church. Whether you are a member or a visitor, we are so glad that you have joined us in worship this morning.

If you are in town because you are a delegate to the annual Synod of the Christian Reformed Church, we are so glad that you have joined us in worship. We are glad to have you here.

We also extend a welcome this morning to Pastor Sean England, who will preach for us. Sean has been a regular LaGrave attender. He is a commissioned pastor in the CRC, a fellow commissioned pastor, and he also works with Celebration Fellowship Church in Ionia and the prisons there. Sean, thanks for being with us this morning.

We invite everyone to a time of coffee and conversation after the service in the multipurpose room. Head straight to the narthex, down the hall, and it is on your right-hand side. If you live in District Five, that geographic region, there is a special coffee time for you in the parlor this morning. That is down the hall and then to your left.

We also invite you back tonight for evening worship at six. We will celebrate the Lord's Supper tonight, so we invite you to come and be fed at the Lord's table.

It is a privilege this morning to welcome a few new members to the church. I am going to ask Mark and Judy Mulan to stand first. Thank you.

They were first introduced to LaGrave by our livestream during COVID, and they moved to Grand Rapids from Peoria, Illinois. They now split their time between Grand Rapids and the UP. They are mostly retired from a lifelong ministry with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Together, they enjoy creation care, watching wildlife, gardening, card making, reading, and singing hymns.

Mark and Judy, we are glad you have chosen to make LaGrave your church home. Welcome.

We also extend a welcome to Isaac Kerr. Isaac, if you would stand.

Isaac is a Calvin student who is studying computer science. Although he was born in the United States, he spent much of his life in Korea and was raised there. He moved back to the United States in 2022 with his older sister and brother-in-law, who are members here at LaGrave.

He enjoys doing puzzles with friends and looks forward to his time here at LaGrave, learning more about what the Christian life looks like in the United States, which is different than Korea, and finding opportunities to grow his faith.

Isaac, we are glad you have chosen LaGrave as your church home. Welcome.

This morning, we are called into our time of confession with words from Romans 6. Paul writes these words to the church at Rome, but he also writes them to us. He says, "Do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and offer every part of yourself to Him as an instrument of righteousness."

Knowing that we fall short of that standard that God has called us to, we come to God in a time of confession, and we begin our prayer in song.

Speaker 2 - Congregation / Choir / Musicians:
[Sung prayer of confession. The transcript did not provide recoverable lyric text.]

Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Liturgist:
That is our prayer, Lord: that You would redeem our waywardness, the times when we have done what we should not have done, and the times when we have not done the things we should have done. Have mercy upon us, O God, and cleanse us from our sins. In Jesus' name, we ask all these things. Amen.

We continue to hear words from Romans 6, words that offer us good news and words of forgiveness. "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means. Thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness."

Thanks be to God that we are forgiven.

Before we go to God in prayer this morning, we have a few additional announcements in addition to what is already printed in the bulletin. First, Ron Schumacher was able to return home from the hospital, so he is recovering at home. Also, Shara Joussra will have spinal fusion surgery tomorrow morning for her back.

We extend our congratulations to one of our administrative assistants in the office, Lindsay Van Dyke, and to her husband, Drew, on the birth of their second son, Rowan Tice Van Dyke, who was born on Thursday.

We will be assisted in prayer this morning with words from Psalm 145. That response is printed in the order of worship. I invite you to listen for those words that I will pray occasionally throughout the prayer, and then respond with me with the words that are in bold.

Let us pray.

Our God and our King, we come to You this morning to praise and exalt Your name, for You are great and most worthy of praise. As Your people, we tell of Your mighty acts. We speak of Your glorious splendor. We meditate on Your wonderful works, and we tell of Your power, including the fact that You, Lord, are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.

Father, Your Word also reminds us that You uphold all who fall and lift up those who are bowed down. So we bring before You those who have been experiencing struggles in their lives. Father, we pray for continued recovery for Mary Lou Riefer after her back surgery and for Bill Stroh after his fall and his adjustment to assisted living.

Father, we pray that You would be with those who are grieving: the Pater family in the death of Ray and the Vanderarc family in the death of Lori. Father, give them the reminder of Your tremendous gift of eternal life.

We pray that You would go before Shara Joussra as she has surgery tomorrow for her back. We pray for a successful surgery that will relieve the pain she has been experiencing. We pray, too, for Renee Kuiper as she anticipates surgery for her cancer. Father, we pray in advance for that surgery to be a success.

We continue to pray for Ron Schumacher. We give You thanks that he has returned home, but we also pray for renewed strength for him. Father, we pray for those names that have been in our fishbowl this past year: those who do not know Jesus as Savior, those who are wandering in their faith, and those who have left the Christian faith. Father, we pray that Your Spirit would work mightily in their lives.

Lord our God, we pray that You would meet the needs of all these people, for You, Lord, are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.

Father, we also have reasons this morning to celebrate Your abundant goodness and to joyfully sing of Your righteousness. We give You thanks for the new addition to the family of Lindsay and Drew Van Dyke, and for the birth of their son, Rowan. Bless them now as a family of four.

We thank You for Jean Rienstra's good results, and we pray that You would continue to be with her as she recovers. We thank You, Father, for the marriage of Olivia Alcombrac and Derek Gritters. May You be at the center of their marriage.

Father, we thank You for Your mercies that were new this morning as we got up, and for Your faithfulness that will be evident tonight as we look back upon this day. We thank You for beautiful sunrises and sunsets, for the rain You sent, for the power displayed in the storms this past week, and for the wide variety of trees and plants that we see this summer season.

Father, we give You thanks for all these examples of Your faithfulness, for You, Lord, are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.

Out of all creation, we also lift before You these needs for intercession. We think of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, and we plead for peace: a lasting peace, wisdom, and humility for leaders of all nations that are involved, and freedom for Christians in all places, especially for the growing population of Christians in Iran.

We pray for peace as well where there is unrest and instability in other areas of the world: Ukraine, Sudan, Cuba, and other countries.

We pray, Father, for those who seek to be the hands and feet of Jesus in difficult places: communities upset by war, areas without access to clean water, and places where there have been natural disasters.

Father, bless the work of World Vision, World Renew, and Samaritan's Purse. We pray that You would bless the work of organizations in our own neighborhood, including Dagazheh and Meltrader, as well as the work of our own Christian Bats as we seek to meet not only the physical needs but also the emotional and spiritual needs of our homeless neighbors.

Father, we lift before You as well At Boss, our missionary who works with Worldwide Lab Improvements. We pray that You would grant wisdom to that organization for the future.

We lift before You our denomination, the Christian Reformed Church, especially for Synod as it continues to meet. Lord our God, grant wisdom, insight, and humility to all staff and delegates. May Your Spirit be the leader of all that we do as a denomination, so that renewal may come to ministries, to congregations, and in the lives of us, Your people.

We lift all these needs before You, for You, Lord, are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.

Merciful Father, we are reminded in Your Word that You are near to all who call on You, to all who call on You in truth. Thank You for being near to us during this time of prayer and for hearing our cries. We ask it all in the name of Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Speaker 2 - Congregation / Choir / Musicians:
[Hymn or choral response. The transcript contains the lines "O Christ, who spared not any cost" and references coming near the cross, but much of the text was not recoverable with confidence.]

Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Liturgist:
We have some people coming from the balcony. Lots of people from the balcony. Here they come. Good morning. Glad to have you here.

Good morning. I see a few more coming yet, making their way down the steps. We will wait for them. I want to show you the things I have to show you when they are here, too.

There they come. Down they come. Good morning.

In my bag here, I have some pencils. This one is bright green. This one is black. This one is kind of short. It says Ticonderoga on it. This one is orange. This one has a little ghost on it. If you can see that, it says "Boo." It is a Halloween pencil. This one is red. It has hearts and X's on it. That one is for Valentine's Day. I have also got a bright pink one.

All of these pencils are different. Some of them are sharper than others. Some of them are longer than others. However, if you look at them carefully, they all have something in common. Look carefully as I hold them up. What do they all have in common? Does anyone see what they all have in common?

What do they have in common? They do not have any erasers. All of the erasers are gone. Yes, all of the erasers are gone.

That means these pencils have been used for a lot of mistakes. A lot of mistakes. They have erased and erased.

Now, when we make mistakes in life, not just with writing with our pencil, but when we make mistakes in life and do things that God does not want us to do, the Bible has a word for that. Does anyone know what that word is? What He calls that? It starts with an S.

Does anyone know what that means? Sin, exactly. When we do something He does not want us to do, it is sin.

The Bible also tells us that when we sin, if we confess our sins, if we say we are sorry to God, He will forgive our sins. Yes, if we say we are sorry, He will forgive us for our sins. The Bible says He will cleanse us from our sins.

That is sort of like what could happen with this pencil, because this pencil on the top has what? An eraser, exactly. This one has an eraser. So if I make a mistake when I am writing, I can erase it.

When we say we are sorry to God, He does that with our sins, too. He erases our sins. He washes them away. But it is a little bit different than this eraser, because with this eraser, if I make a lot of mistakes and keep using it, what is going to happen to this eraser? Exactly. It is going to look like this one, right? The eraser is going to go away.

Here is the good news. With God, His forgiveness, His mercy, His love, and His grace never run out. It is never like either of these pencils, even the one that does not have the eraser and the one that does, because with Him, it never wears out. This eraser is going to go down, but God's mercy and love never go away.

We are weak, but He is strong. Now there is a song that talks about that, and I think some of you probably know it. Yes, exactly. We are going to sing that. I think some of you know it, and I think the big people out there know it too, so they can sing along with us. We are going to sing this reminder of how much Jesus loves us.

Speaker 2 - Congregation / Choir / Musicians:
Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong. They are weak, but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.

Speaker 1 - Worship Leader / Liturgist:
I want you to remember that, okay? Even though we make mistakes and we sin, we can ask God to forgive us, and He has enough mercy and love to always forgive us. Okay, remember that.

Congregation, what is our prayer for these children?

Speaker 2 - Congregation:
Go in peace.

Speaker 3 - Scripture Reader / Guest Preacher:
Good morning. I would like you all to keep that in mind as we read this Scripture, because it can be a hard one.

We are reading today from the book of Hebrews, chapter 10, verses 26 to 31, and that is on page 1872 of your pew Bibles. Hear the Word of the Lord.

"If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, 'It is Mine to avenge; I will repay,' and again, 'The Lord will judge His people.' It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

This is the Word of the Lord.

That can be hard to hear. Every time I hear it, I cannot help but think of C. S. Lewis and his Chronicles of Narnia. He creates this world of Narnia that is beautiful and magical, with talking animals and very distinct good and evil.

Into this world stumbles a little human girl, Lucy, and she meets Mr. Beaver and the faun, Mr. Tumnus. When she finds out that the world is ruled by Aslan the lion, who is how C. S. Lewis sees Jesus in this magical world, she asks Mr. Beaver, "Is he safe?"

Mr. Beaver looks at her and says, "Safe? He is not safe, but he is good." Because Aslan is not a tame lion, and our God is not a tame God.

Often, we read the Bible and we have this picture of Jesus, which is true, of a shepherd: someone who loves us deeply, who is strong for us, and who cares for us. But He is not safe. He is good, but He is not safe, because His goodness surpasses ours. His goodness requires everything that you have.

Hebrews is an interesting book because it is kind of a sermon. It was written to the early Jewish Christians who were facing persecution in the Roman world. Rome allowed the Jewish people to exercise their religion outside of the norm because they respected things of antiquity. They respected tradition and history, and the Jews had a very long line of tradition and antiquity.

By the time the book of Hebrews was written, the Christians had separated themselves out of the Jewish culture. They were no longer just a sect of the Jews; they were a distinct people. The Romans did not care about new religion, so these Jewish Christians found themselves persecuted. They found themselves paying taxes and not fitting into the culture. We all know the image of Christians being sent to the arena with lions. This was their reality.

It must have felt to them as though it would be safer and easier just to go back to the old ways, where nothing was really required of them. There was no change. They did not have to live a certain way. They just had to let the priests handle it. They had the laws of Moses. The Jews were not getting persecuted. Obviously, God was taking care of them.

That is what they wanted to do. They wanted a softened and more manageable way of living, a God who did not demand too much of them. They wanted a culture they could live in safely and securely. Their success in life was judged by how easily they lived.

They were tempted to go back to that safer, older, more familiar model of life. But that is not what God demanded of them, because once you have accepted Christ, once you have drunk from His cup, your life has changed. You are no longer the same person. You cannot just go back.

If you read the commentaries, they call this apostasy. In the Reformed tradition, there is always a question: Is apostasy possible? If you are regenerated, can you even turn away? Hebrews seems to think that you can.

It does not have to be the type of obvious turning away that we are talking about here with the early Jewish Christians, because we all have a tendency to avert our eyes sometimes. We know what is right because the Spirit is dwelling within us, telling us how to behave, but instead we take the easy path.

We want a God who comforts us but does not confront us. When we see something that is not right, often we keep our mouths shut. Maybe you are at work, listening to the people you work with say things about ways of being in the world that you do not agree with. Instead of addressing them, instead of standing up for what you know is right, you take the easy path. You accommodate culture.

I do not know if that is trampling the Son of God. I do not know if that is insulting the blood that sanctifies us. But I do know that we are insulting the Spirit that dwells within us when we do this. If we ignore the Spirit, we are insulting the Spirit.

Sometimes it is as easy as scrolling through your phone instead of dealing with somebody who needs you. I cannot tell you the number of times I have seen somebody who just is not paying attention to the world around them because their face is buried in their holy phone. They care more about likes and their feed than they do about the Word that has sanctified them and made them new.

That is a hard thing to bear. It is a hard thing to understand. It is a hard thing to accept, that turning your eyes away changes the way you live in the world.

God is not safe. He does not allow you to turn your eyes away. He asks you to suffer for His sake. He is good in a way that we are not good.

The early Christians thought that the way of Christianity was becoming more and more difficult, and they could not do it. But immediately after this verse, we get the joy that comes of learning that we do not do this alone. There is a great cloud of witnesses that surrounds us, cheers us on, and sustains us. We have both the invisible and the visible church to walk with us and be with us in the world.

We do not do this alone. They did not do this alone. They had a church that sustained them in their struggle. God did not promise them fire and blood just to scare them. He wanted to correct them, because God corrects us. God makes us whole in a way that we cannot make ourselves whole as we walk through the world.

In the times when you are struggling with a decision and a choice, you do not make it alone because Christ is there in you. The Spirit that dwells within you has been given as a gift. You see it all over the world if you do not avert your eyes.

You see it here in your community. I come to this church because I see things from this church that I do not see elsewhere. I see an interest in the world around them. You live in a place where homeless people are prevalent everywhere you look. It is shocking sometimes. So many churches just turn their eyes away. They ignore the needs of those around them.

But you voted almost unanimously to use this building next door for the good of the community. That is the Spirit working in this church. We have a beautiful place to worship, but we do not domesticate God here. We allow God to come in and change us, to make us into the servants He wants us to be.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God because you do not get to make the choices anymore. You do not get to do what is safe, comfortable, or easy, because the living God confronts you. Like Aslan, He changes you. He changes you into something you did not think you could be: a king and a queen in His kingdom.

This is the promise that we are given in the book of Hebrews: we do not do this ourselves; God does this to us. Jesus gave us the once-and-for-all sacrifice. There is no turning back from that. There is nothing else you can do, nothing else you need to do, except allow Him to change you. Allow Him to make you into something new and beautiful: the you that you were always meant to be.

C. S. Lewis always called that the "you-est you," and I love that. In Christ, you get to be the you-est you, the true you, unburdened by the sins of this world. Accept Jesus as your Lord, as the lion that rules your life, and you will be changed.

There is no despair in this chapter. The fear is for those who think they can turn away. We cannot, because we are changed, renewed, and made into the people God wants us to be.

This is a scary chapter. This is a scary warning, but only if you decide that you want to be the one in control. If you let God be in control, there is nothing to fear here.

This is a strange chapter to choose in a sermon series on wisdom. But ultimately, is not wisdom knowing that you are not the one in charge? You are not the one who gets to say what is right and what is wrong. God knows what is good because He is not safe, but He is good.

He sustains us in our troubles, and He has given all of us, each of us, communally and together, His Spirit and His body. He has given us each other to support, sustain, and encourage.

This is a wonderful gift, because there is no turning back. Amen.

Speaker 2 - Congregation / Choir / Musicians:
[Closing musical response. The transcript contained repeated "Amen" and other automated music artifacts that could not be reliably reconstructed as publishable text.]