For the week of October 12 – 18th Sunday after Pentecost
Morning Prayer: God our Creator and Redeemer, open our eyes to a larger awareness of Your goodness, and our souls to deeper gratitude. Then, uplifted with thanksgiving, may we give ourselves to unpleasant tasks with good grace, and show irk-some people a good will such as we offer our best friends. Through Christ Jesus our ever-present Lord. Amen! (Discipleship Ministries)
Opening Hymn: #87 What Gift Can We Bring
- What gift can we bring, what present, what token?
What words can convey it, the joy of this day?
When grateful we come, remembering, rejoicing, what song can we offer in honor and praise?
- Give thanks for the past, for those who had vision,
who planted and watered so dreams could come true.
Give thanks for the now, for study, for worship, for mission that bids us turn prayer into deed.
- Give thanks for tomorrow, full of surprises, for knowing whatever tomorrow may bring,
The Word is our promise always, forever, we rest in God’s keeping and live in God’s love.
- This gift we now bring, this present, this token, these words can convey it, the joy of this day.
When grateful we come, remembering, rejoicing, this song we now offer in honor and praise!
Jeremiah 29:4-7
4 The Lord of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, proclaims to all the exiles I have carried off from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and settle down; cultivate gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Get married and have children; then help your sons find wives and your daughters find husbands in order that they too may have children. Increase in number there so that you don’t dwindle away. 7 Promote the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because your future depends on its welfare.
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: Carla Travelpiece needs help making sure all children Feel the Warmth of Jesus. The Coat giveaway is Saturday, October 25, 10 am – 1 pm. Contact Carla today or within the next week so she is sure to have plenty of help lined up.
Offering prayer: Gracious healer who meets us on the way, You give gifts we never earn and mercies we often forget to name. Receive these offerings as signs of our gratitude and expressions of our faith. Let them be more than ritual—let them become praise, rising from lives made whole in Your grace. May we never settle for being merely clean when You call us to wellness, to joy, to thanksgiving. Make us a generous people, healed and healing, blessing others as You have blessed us. In the name of Jesus, who makes us well. Amen. (Discipleship Ministries)
Hymn of preparation: #568 Christ for the World We Sing
- Christ for the world we sing, the world to Christ we bring, with loving zeal;
the poor, and them that mourn, the faint and overborne,
sinsick and sorrow-worn, whom Christ doth heal. - Christ for the world we sing, the world to Christ we bring, with fervent prayer;
the wayward and the lost, by restless passions tossed,
redeemed at countless cost, from dark despair. - Christ for the world we sing, the world to Christ we bring, with one accord;
with us the work to share, with us reproach to dare,
with us the cross to bear, for Christ our Lord. - Christ for the world we sing, the world to Christ we bring, with joyful song;
the newborn souls, whose days, reclaimed from error's ways,
inspired with hope and praise, to Christ belong.
Scripture:
1 Corinthians 12:1-11 (CEB)
12 Brothers and sisters, I don’t want you to be ignorant about spiritual gifts. 2 You know that when you were Gentiles you were often misled by false gods that can’t even speak. 3 So I want to make it clear to you that no one says, “Jesus is cursed!” when speaking by God’s Spirit, and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. 4 There are different spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; 5 and there are different ministries and the same Lord; 6 and there are different activities but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. 7 A demonstration of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good. 8 A word of wisdom is given by the Spirit to one person, a word of knowledge to another according to the same Spirit, 9 faith to still another by the same Spirit, gifts of healing to another in the one Spirit, 10 performance of miracles to another, prophecy to another, the ability to tell spirits apart to another, different kinds of tongues[a] to another, and the interpretation of the tongues to another. 11 All these things are produced by the one and same Spirit who gives what he wants to each person.
Galatians 5:22-24 (CEB)
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against things like this. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the self with its passions and its desires.
Affirm your faith by reciting the Apostles’ Creed: I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; He descended to the dead. On the third day He rose again; He ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father, and will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen. (UM Hymnal #882)
Message: Blessing the World Pastor Becky
In the past weeks we have been examining discipleship. Discipleship is the orientation, the focus of our lives being on and in Jesus Christ. A disciple is a follower of Jesus Christ who is committed to belonging to the body of Christ, becoming more like Jesus, and blessing the world.
I want you to think about a blessing that you've received. It can literally be anything. Something big, something small. Something you would call a blessing.
If you thought about a person, what was it that made him or her a blessing? Was it that this person made you feel seen, loved, valued? Did they come to you as a comfort or a help? What is it that they did for you?
If your blessing could best be described as a gift, something physical, something that you could put your hands on something tangible did it fill an immediate need or a future need? Was this blessing a gesture of gratitude? And in the end, did it draw you closer to the person that gave it to you?
My hope is that you have an image or an emotion in your mind and in your heart. What I am hoping for is a frame of reference to a blessing.
When you think about what Jesus did and continues to do for all of us, do you consider that a blessing? You are blessed by Jesus. Our relationship with Jesus and the connection Jesus gives us to God and the Holy Spirit is a blessing. Each of us is a blessing. We are called to be a blessing to the world. It's amazing to me that in our brokenness God sees each of us as a blessing.
We are a blessing to the world because we embody hope. Hebrews records it like this: “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess for God who promised is faithful.” (10:32) We find in Lamentations 3:22- 23: ”Because of the Lord's great love, we aren't consumed for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning, great is Your faithfulness.” We are a blessing to the world because we, as believers and followers of Jesus Christ, are vessels of hope.
We can be seen as these vessels of hope, because we are new creations in Christ. Paul records that in 2 Corinthians 5:17. In our transformations from what we were to who we are, others see hope and the possibilities for themselves. The connections they are able to make when they see our transformations, when they see us wrestle with the things that befall us and what we do with the things that lift us up, can change mindsets. Victims can be victors in the same way we are victors in Jesus Christ.
Our discipleship, our ability to live into the dimensions of belonging to the body of Christ, becoming more like Jesus, and blessing the world offers others a hope and faith to lean on until they embrace both hope and faith. I think we can all think of a time when we have leaned hard on the faith of another, when our own faith may have been weak. We can point to a time in our lives when a grandmotherly love and faith held us in our dark times. We hold space and faith for others when we are truly living into our calling of being a disciple for Jesus Christ.
I point us back to Matthew 4:19 which is Jesus' invitation to the first disciples and also the invitation for us. “Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of people.” We need to live into our discipleship because the expectation is that when we encounter the world in our everyday, ordinary, walkabout lives, we are carrying with us spiritual gifts and fruit of the spirits.
Pastor Ron and I led a spiritual gifts workshop together and had made available inventories, definitions, and questionnaires to help you assess what your spiritual gifts are. We didn't do this so that we could compile the information and best decide whose gifts should be employed in what places, or what we could do as a church. Those inventories were done so you would see how God has touched and ordained each of your lives for life out in the community. Your gifts aren't merely for our gathering, but for the world. This is what you bring and this is what you offer in your friendships, vocations, families, and hobbies. Every facet of your life is touched by and carries your spiritual gifts. The amount of people you reach with your gift when you employ them is astronomical. And because of this radiating of spiritual gifts from each of us, the lives of those around us should be transforming left and right for the better after encountering each of us. Are we having that effect on people? Are they better for meeting you.
This is the very heart of discipleship. When they meet you, are they meeting the One you follow? Is there evidence that you are in relation with Jesus Christ when you meet people? Now, I don't mean that you have the big “come to Jesus" speech. Each time you encounter a new person what I'm talking about are the characteristics of love, grace, compassion, and mercy that are embodied in Jesus. Are people meeting Jesus when they meet you? Our interactions with others should be an experience of experiencing the fruit you received from the Holy Spirit. Is your life characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control? God makes available to us everything that we need to be in relationship with others in our world. This is how the world can and should experience us in order for us to be the blessing God ordained us to be. The world is looking to us to be the blessings God intended us to be.
Closing Hymn: #431 Let There Be Peace on Earth
Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me;
Let there be peace on earth the peace that was meant to be.
With God our creator, children all are we. Let us walk with each other in perfect harmony.
Let peace begin with me let this be the moment now.
With every step I take let this be my solemn vow:
To take each moment and live each moment in peace eternally.
Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.
The blessing: May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face shine upon you this week.
