OPENING PRAYER
Heavenly Father,
We come to You today to ask for Your guidance and wisdom
as we seek to become bridge builders in our community.
Help us to be a light in the darkness,
a voice of hope and encouragement,
and a source of comfort and peace.
Give us the courage to reach out to those who are different from us,
those who are struggling and those in need.
Help us to be open to learning from others
and to be willing to share our beliefs with those who are searching.
Give us the strength to be a bridge between our community and the Church,
to be a bridge between our faith and our culture,
and to be a bridge between our beliefs and our actions.
We thank You for the opportunity to be bridge builders
and to share Your love with the world.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Christ calls us to love our neighbors, but it’s almost impossible to love someone when a barrier separates us.
SERMON
1 Peter 2:4-12 NIV
As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
For in Scripture, it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”
Now to you who believe this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and, “A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
Priest: a
Bridge builder vs. bridge burner
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POINT: At the center of Christian bridge-building is
“The movement for Jesus was always from the outside in. His message was always one of inclusion, communicated through speaking to people, healing them, and offering them what biblical scholars call “table fellowship,” that is, dining with them, a sign of welcome and acceptance in first-century Palestine. In fact, Jesus was often criticized for this practice. But Jesus’s movement was about inclusion. He was creating a sense of “us.” —James Martin, Building a Bridge
1 Corinthians 9:19-23 NRSV
Though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all so that I might gain all the more. To the Jews, I became as a Jew in order to gain Jews. To those under the law, I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might gain those under the law.
To those outside the law, I became as one outside the law (though I am not outside God’s law but am within Christ’s law) so that I might gain those outside the law. To the weak, I became weak so that I might gain the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might, by all means, save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel so that I might become a partner in it.