We will meet jointly at Bethesda United Presbyterian Church, Elizabeth at 11:15am for worship including Holy Communion.
Worship
Service for June 7, 2026
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Rejoice in the Lord, you who seek to walk
in God’s ways.
P: We will sing praises to God with grateful
hearts.
L: Give thanks to the Lord with music and
song.
P: We will proclaim God’s faithfulness with
joy and gladness.
L: The word of the Lord is upright and
trustworthy.
P: God’s works are filled with faithfulness
and truth.
L: By the word of the Lord the heavens were
made.
P: By God’s breath all creation came into
being.
L: The plans of the nations rise and fall,
but the purposes of God endure forever.
P: We place our trust in the One whose love
never fails.
L: Blessed are the people whose God is the
Lord.
P: Blessed are those who live as God’s
beloved community.
L: Come, let us worship the Lord with
thanksgiving ang praise.
P: Let us worship God, whose faithfulness
endures through all generations.
Opening
Hymn – Glorify Thy Name / Majesty
Hymn #9
and 10 in the Brown Hymnal
Prayer of Confession
Faithful and loving God, You
call us to rejoice in Your goodness and to trust in Your steadfast love, yet we
confess that we often place our confidence in our own strength and wisdom. We seek security in things that cannot save
and give our loyalty to priorities that do not reflect Your kingdom. We confess that we have not always loved
righteousness and justice as You do. We
have remained silent when truth needed to be spoken, indifferent when
compassion was required, and hesitant when courage was needed. We have failed to see our neighbors as You
see them and have not always shared Your concern for those who are burdened,
forgotten, or excluded. Forgive us, O
God, for the ways we have wandered from Your will. Renew within us a steadfast spirit. Teach us again to trust Your purposes above
our own plans and to seek Your wisdom above the wisdom of the world. By Your grace, restore us to joyful
obedience. Fill our hearts with
gratitude, our mouths with praise, and our lives with faithful service, so that
we may bear witness to Your love and reflect the light of Christ in all that we
do. (Silent
prayers are offered)
AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Friends, hear the good news: God’s
steadfast love endures forever, and God’s mercy never fails. Through Christ, God has reconciled us and
called us into new life.
P: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven. Thanks be to God. AMEN!
Gloria Patri
Affirmation of Faith/Apostles’
Creed
I believe in God the Father
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the
third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on
the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge
the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins; the
resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
Gracious and Almighty God,
We come before You this morning with hearts full of
gratitude and praise. You are the
Creator of heaven and earth, the giver of every good and perfect gift, and the
faithful God who keeps His covenant from generation to generation. We thank You for the gift of this Lord's Day,
for the privilege of gathering in Your presence, and for the grace that has
brought us safely through another week.
Lord, we pray for Your Church throughout the world. Strengthen pastors, elders, deacons,
missionaries, and all who labor in Your service. Grant them wisdom, courage, and faithfulness
as they proclaim Your Word. Protect Your
people wherever they face persecution, and cause Your gospel to advance among
every nation, tribe, people, and language.
We pray for our nation and for all those in authority. Grant them wisdom to govern with justice and
integrity. Restrain evil, promote what
is good, and guide leaders to seek peace and righteousness. Help us as citizens to be faithful witnesses
of Christ in our communities.
Holy God, we lift before You those who are suffering. Comfort the grieving, strengthen the weary,
heal the sick, and encourage the discouraged. Provide for those facing financial hardship,
loneliness, uncertainty, or fear. Let
all who are burdened find refuge in Your unfailing love and steadfast care. We especially pray for….
We pray for the ministries of our congregations. Bless our worship, teaching, fellowship, and
outreach. Help us to grow in faith,
hope, and love. Make us a people who
reflect the character of Christ and who gladly serve one another for Your
glory.
As we continue in worship today, open our hearts to
receive Your Word. Give us ears to hear, minds to understand, and wills ready
to obey. Through the work of Your Holy Spirit, conform us more fully to the
image of Your Son and equip us to live as faithful disciples in the week ahead.
Give us space in this time of silence to not only hear
you speak to our spirits, but allow us to speak to Your own.
We ask all these things with confidence in Your promises
and in the name of Jesus Christ, our risen and reigning Lord, who taught us to
pray, saying: 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. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors. And lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. AMEN.
Hymn – Just As I Am Hymn #488 Brown
Scripture Reading(s):
Genesis
12:1-9
Romans
4:13-25
Sermon –
Stepping Into the Unknown
(based on Genesis 12:1-9; Romans
4:13-25)
There are moments in life when we
wish God would provide a detailed map. We
want directions. We want certainty. We want a guarantee that if we take a risk,
make a change, start a new ministry, move to a new city, retire from a long
career, begin a relationship, or face a difficult diagnosis, everything will
turn out exactly as we had hoped. Yet Scripture
reminds us that faith rarely works that way.
The story of Abram in Genesis begins
not with any of that certainty but rather with a call to step into the unknown.
God speaks to Abram and says, "Go
from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I
will show you." Notice what God
does not say. God does not provide an
itinerary. God does not offer a
timeline. God does not reveal every
challenge that Abram will face along the way. God simply says, "Go."
And somehow for Abram (before he became
known as Abraham) that is enough. Abram
leaves behind everything familiar. He
leaves the security of home, the comfort of routine, the identity that comes
from belonging to a particular place and community. He leaves not because he knows exactly where
he is going but because he trusts the One who is calling him. That trust later becomes the very foundation
of God's covenant with all humanity.
The remarkable thing is that Abram
is not a young adventurer seeking excitement. He is already established. He has responsibilities, possessions,
relationships, and obligations. The
older we become, the more difficult change often feels. We know what works. We know what is comfortable. We know where we belong. And we know, for sure, that we don’t want any
of that to change. Yet God calls Abram
anyway.
How many of you are familiar with
the movie Frozen 2? There’s a song in it
that seems to come directly out of Abram’s mouth. I’d like to play it for you. (Play song)
The
lyrics are:
I can
hear you but I won't
Some look for trouble while others don't
There's a thousand reasons I should go about my day
And ignore your whispers, which I wish would go away, oh
(Oh) oh (oh)
You're
not a voice, you're just a ringing in my ear
And if I heard you, which I don't, I'm spoken for I fear
Everyone I've ever loved is here within these walls
I'm sorry, secret siren but I'm blocking out your calls
I've had my adventure, I don't need something new
I'm afraid of what I'm risking if I follow you
Into
the unknown
Into the unknown
Into the unknown
(Oh, oh)
What do
you want? 'Cause you've been keeping me awake
Are you here to distract me so I make a big mistake?
Or are you someone out there who's a little bit like me?
Who knows deep down I'm not where I'm meant to be?
Every day's a little harder, as I feel your power grow
Don't you know there's part of me that longs to go
Into
the unknown
Into the unknown
Into the unknown
(Oh, oh), whoa
Are you
out there? Do you know me?
Can you feel me? Can you show me?
Oh
(oh), oh (oh)
Oh (oh), oh (oh)
Oh (oh), oh (oh)
Where
are you going? Don't leave me alone
How do I follow you
Into the unknown?
As I heard this song, I realized
that these words could so easily have been written by Abram as he faced God’s
own call to leave the comfort of the world he knew to follow God’s voice into
the unknown. And he did! The journey of faith begins when we discover
that God's future is often larger than our comfort zone. The same truth appears centuries later in
Paul's letter to the Romans. Paul looks
back at Abraham and sees something deeper than simply a historical figure. He
sees a model of faith itself.
Paul reminds us that God's promise
to Abraham did not depend on law, achievement, or human accomplishment. The promise came through faith. Faith, for Paul, is not primarily believing
certain doctrines or agreeing with a list of theological statements. Faith is trust. Faith is confidence that God's promises are
larger than our present circumstances. Abraham
trusted God's promise even when all available evidence suggested it was
impossible. He and Sarah were old. Their bodies reflected the realities of aging.
The promise of descendants as numerous
as the stars seemed unrealistic, perhaps even absurd.
Yet Abraham believed. Paul writes that Abraham "hoped against
hope." That phrase captures the
essence of faith and it’s what allowed Abram to hear God’s call reach down into
the depths of his soul and go into the unknown without hesitation, without
fear. To hope against hope means
trusting that God is still at work when visible evidence is scarce. It means believing that new life can emerge
where others see only endings. It means
believing resurrection is possible.
Many of us know what it feels like
to stand in that space. We look at
divisions within our communities and wonder whether reconciliation is possible. We look at declining church membership and
wonder whether congregations have a future.
We look at political polarization and wonder whether neighbors can still
find common ground. We look at
environmental challenges, economic uncertainty, violence, and injustice and
wonder whether meaningful change can happen.
The temptation is to surrender to cynicism. Cynicism often masquerades as wisdom. It tells us not to expect too much. It
encourages us to lower our expectations. It assures us that disappointment is
inevitable.
But the gospel continually pushes
back against cynicism. The God who
called Abram into an unknown future is the same God who raised Jesus from the
dead. The God who creates new
possibilities where none seem visible, that God has not stopped working.
Faith is not denial of reality. Abraham certainly understood reality. Paul
makes clear that Abraham recognized the limitations of his situation. He simply
believed that God's power was greater than those limitations. Faith allows us to acknowledge reality
honestly while refusing to believe that reality has the final word.
Several years ago, a congregation in
a declining industrial town faced difficult decisions. The neighborhood around
the church had changed dramatically. Attendance had decreased. Financial
resources were shrinking. Some members
believed the best option was simply to survive as long as possible. Instead, they began asking a different
question. What might God be calling us
to become? They listened to their
community. They noticed increasing numbers of families struggling with food
insecurity. They discovered that local children needed safe places after
school. Gradually they transformed
unused classrooms into community spaces. Volunteers organized tutoring
programs. The fellowship hall became a
gathering place for meals and support. The
congregation did not suddenly become large. They did not solve every one of their problems. But, stepping out in faith, into the unknown,
they discovered a new purpose.
They stopped focusing on preserving
what had been and started participating in what God was doing. That is an Abraham and Sarah kind of faith. It is the willingness to step toward an
uncertain future because God's promise matters more than our fear.
The challenge for most of us is that
we prefer guarantees. We want assurance
before we act. We want certainty before
we commit. We want proof before we
trust. Yet the Bible repeatedly presents
faith as movement.
Abram goes.
Moses leads.
Ruth follows.
The disciples leave their nets.
The early church crosses boundaries
and welcomes strangers.
Faith is rarely passive.
Faith moves.
Faith steps forward.
Faith trusts that God can do
something new.
This is especially important in
times of transition.
Many people today are navigating
enormous transitions. Some are retiring or
have retired after decades of work. Others
are caring for aging parents. Some are
grieving losses that have changed the shape of daily life. Others are wondering what comes next after
long-held plans have unraveled. The
future feels uncertain.
Yet Genesis reminds us that
uncertainty is often where God begins. The
land God promised Abraham and Sarah was not merely a geographical destination. It represented a future that Abraham could not
yet see. Likewise, God's promises to us
are often larger than our immediate understanding. When God calls us forward into what can only
be seen for us as the unknown, we seldom ever see the entire picture.
We see only the next step. And perhaps that is enough. The church with a capital C lives in a
similar moment. Across the country
congregations are asking difficult questions about identity, mission, and
purpose. The cultural landscape has
changed. The assumptions that shaped
church life for generations no longer exist.
So, it would be easy to become
discouraged. But perhaps this moment
resembles Abraham and Sarah’s journey more than we realize. Perhaps God is calling the church to trust
once again. Perhaps God is inviting us
to release old certainties and discover fresh opportunities for ministry. Perhaps God is already preparing blessings
that we cannot yet imagine. After all,
God's promise to Abraham was never intended solely for Abraham. "I will bless you," God says,
"so that you will be a blessing."
That is the heart of covenant. God blesses people not for their own benefit
alone but so they can become channels of blessing for others. The same calling belongs to us. Our faith is not simply about personal
salvation. It is about participating in God's healing work in the world. It is about becoming people through whom
God's love, justice, compassion, and mercy become visible. Every act of kindness, every effort toward
reconciliation, every commitment to justice, every welcome offered to a
stranger becomes part of that larger promise.
Like Abraham, we are being called
into the unknown and we may not see the final outcome. Like Abraham, we may travel through
unfamiliar territory. Like Abraham, we
may sometimes wonder whether God's promises can truly be fulfilled. Yet Paul reminds us that the foundation of
our hope is not our own strength but God's faithfulness.
The God who called Abraham. The God who sustained Sarah. The God who raised Jesus from the dead. The God who continues creating new
possibilities even now. That God remains
trustworthy.
So, when the future feels uncertain,
remember Abraham. When the path ahead
seems unclear, remember Abraham. When
fear tempts you to stay where you are rather than follow where God leads,
remember Abraham. And above all,
remember the God who called him.
For the same God still calls people
into new futures, still creates hope where none seems possible, still brings
life from places that appear barren, and still invites us to trust. May we have the courage to take the next step
into the unknown. May we have the faith
to hope against hope. And may we
discover, as Abraham did long ago, that God's promises are always larger than
our fears.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Offertory – (Call for the Offering)
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Gracious God,
All that we have comes from
Your generous hand. Receive these
offerings as an expression of our gratitude and worship. Use them for the work of Your kingdom and the
spread of the gospel. We dedicate not
only these gifts but also ourselves to Your service. May all we do bring glory
to Your name. Through Jesus Christ our
Lord, we pray. Amen.
HOLY COMMUNION
Closing Hymn – I’d Rather Have Jesus Hymn #506 Brown Hymnal
Benediction –
May the God who called Abraham and Sarah into their unknown
also lead you in faith. May our Savior
show you mercy in love, and the Holy Spirit strengthen you to trust God's
promises in every circumstance. Go in
peace to serve the Lord.
Postlude
