For the week of June 4-10 – Trinity Sunday
Morning Prayer Holy God, Three in One, You are our eternal hope, our companion in life, our liberating power. Lead us in Your mission, baptizing and teaching in Your blessed name, so that all may worship You to the end of the age. Amen. (Discipleship Ministries)
Hymn #61 Come, Thou Almighty King
- Come, Thou almighty King, help us Thy name to sing, help us to praise!
Father all glorious, o'er all victorious, come and reign over us, Ancient of Days! - Come, Thou incarnate Word, gird on Thy mighty sword, our prayer attend!
Come, and Thy people bless, and give Thy word success,
Spirit of holiness, on us descend!
- Come, holy Comforter, Thy sacred witness bear in this glad hour.
Thou who almighty art, now rule in every heart, and ne'er from us depart,
Spirit of power!
- To Thee, great One in Three, eternal praises be, hence, evermore.
Thy sovereign majesty may we in glory see, and to eternity love and adore!
Psalm 8:1-9
O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! You have set Your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouths of babes and infants You have founded a bulwark because of Your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars that You have established;
what are human beings that You are mindful of them, mortals that You care for them?
Yet You have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under their feet,
all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!
Children’s Time 2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
Children’s Message
How important is it to follow directions? I guess it depends on whether or not accomplishing the task we set out upon is important to us. For example, if I want to take a trip to the beach, I would need to follow the directions very closely or I could end up in the mountains if I go the wrong way. We need to see where it is we want to go or want to make.
Let’s look at making box brownies. The back of the package has what are considered fool proof instructions. We must follow the instructions exactly if we want to have brownies when we are done. Each step is made up of very important mini steps. Under step one, we are to preheat the oven and we are to spray the pan with non stick spray. If we miss either of those steps, we could become frustrated because as we continue through the steps it would become obvious we missed something.
Paul is talking to us today about how we come to live with the God of love and peace. These are directions for achieving this life with God. God isn’t looking to frustrate us or trick us into not achieving that goal, so God has Paul explain it to us thoroughly.
1- We are to put things in order- this is our priorities- God, family, church, friends, school
2- listen to my appeal- study God’s scriptures and follow through
3- agree with one another- this doesn’t mean we just go along with whatever, it means we agree upon Jesus being Lord and everything else will fall into place
4- live in peace- decide what is worth getting upset about or who is worth losing your peace over, when it comes right down to it- there isn’t much to really get upset about
Paul tells us that if we do these things, the God of peace and love will be with you and that is the goal, to live in the presence and with the presence of God. It may not also be easy and we may not achieve it every day, but it is a goal worth striving after.
Prayers of Intercession: Thank You, Lord, for hearing our prayers for those dear to our hearts. We now pray as You have taught us: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us, not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Offering spotlight: There is an envelope in today’s bulletin for offering to support Peace with Justice. Half of the collected funds stay within the Susquehanna Conference and half support ministries around the world to educate, equip and mobilize networks engaged in social advocacy and justice for oppressed people.
Offering prayer: God of all creation, we offer our gifts in gratitude this morning – not just for what You do in our lives, but for who You are in our lives. You are with us in the person of the Father, the God above us. You come to meet us as the Son, as God beside us. You empower us to do the work of kingdom-building by the Holy Spirit – God within us, providing strength and boldness that we would never find on our own. May these gifts be tools that make the transformation of the world a reality. We pray in the name of one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. (Discipleship Ministries)
Hymn of Preparation #641 Fill my Cup, Lord
Fill my cup, Lord, I lift it up Lord, Come and quench this thirsting of my soul.
Bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more; fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole.
Scripture: Matthew 28:16-20
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Message: Pastor Becky
Blessed Trinity Sunday! We are moving into the next season of the church year- Ordinary time. This is the season we number the Sundays between now and Christ the King, so 25 Sundays until Advent from this point. We mark the season with green because we are growing deeper in our faith and understanding. We come together to praise God, 25 Sundays to marvel at our relationship with God, because it is a relationship. Our understanding of God is experiential, which brings us to today, Trinity Sunday. It is the Sunday we acknowledge, praise and worship the Triune God, celebrating the 3 persons of the Trinity and our experience with Them.
I am sure over the course of your discipleship you have tried to put into words this mystery of faith. But there is a problem with trying to explain the Trinity or even trying to explain the persons of the Trinity. Words, our words, are limited. They don’t even begin to describe or give any real meaning to what or who God is. When we do try to explain, we come up short and make the Trinity (God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit) small. We make a god that fits into our box, one we can understand or anticipate. Our words, no matter how well meaning or genuine of heart, strip away the awe and wonder that is God.
I think the only true way we can talk about the Trinity is by our experience of relationship with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
So how do we talk about our experience? How do we experience God? I think we go back to the beginning, to the bare bones, before we even heard the words sovereign, omnipresent, eternal, all knowing. We met God as Creator through natural revelation. We saw, felt, smelled, tasted, and heard the creation around us. We experienced God through our senses and had some idea of the divine mechanism in place. We live in the realm of the created by the Creator. We cannot escape this aspect of our relationship.
Next we move into deeper relationship with God by special revelation. Jesus Christ is God’s special revelation, God with us. Jesus points us to God and redeems us with God. Jesus heals, teaches, and restores us by showing us what grace is and how to live in grace and share grace.
We can lean on borrowed encounters of the past and claim a relationship, we must proclaim it for ourselves, proclaiming faith in Jesus as our Savior. When we read the accounts in the gospels of the feedings, healings, and teachings, where do they intersect in our lives? Have you witnessed the multiplication needed to feed or clothe those Jesus has charged us with care? Where have you seen the miraculous moving of Jesus in your life and in our ministries together? Maybe it is in your calling, where Jesus has called you out of the safety of your life and kept you from sinking.
Have you gotten a nudge or random thought to call on someone? Or maybe you have gotten a feeling that you should visit someone. Then when you show up, you find that person separately needed your presence for one reason or another and you became an answer to a prayer? Maybe you know something that there is no earthly answer as to why you know what you know? Gotten strength you suddenly needed or received precisely what you need to accomplish the task at hand. The sustaining, comfort, the encouragement, support, and enabling is your relationship with the Holy Spirit.
All these experiences speak to our relationship with the Trinity and how we experience the Trinity which is all about relationship. It is through our relationship with God that we can be in relationship with the world. You are all here, part of this Body of Christ, because another person, whether it was your parent, grandparent, spouse, or friend, was in a relationship with you and with God. It was the natural outpouring of love to introduce you to your Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. They invested in you their time, talents, service, prayers, and witness as a love response to you and to God. It is about life together for eternal life.
Closing Hymn #380 There’s Within my Heart a Melody
- There’s within my heart a melody Jesus whispers sweet and low:
Fear not, I am with thee, peace, be still, in all of life’s ebb and flow.
Refrain: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know,
fills my every longing, keeps me singing as I go.
- All my life was wrecked by sin and strife, discord filled my heart with pain;
Jesus swept across the broken strings, stirred the slumbering chords again.
- Though sometimes He leads through waters deep, trials fall across the way,
Though sometimes the path seems rough and steep, see His footprints all the way.
- Feasting on the riches of His grace, resting neath His sheltering wing,
Always looking on His smiling face, that is why I shout and sing.
- Soon He’s coming back to welcome me far beyond the starry sky;
I shall wing my flight to worlds unknown; I shall reign with Him on high.
Go into your week with the blessings of The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit.
