Worship
Service for July 25, 2021
Special Announcement:
I
began this blog site a few years ago, even before COVID-19, to give members of
our two partnership congregations, who are homebound or aren’t able to come to church,
a way to connect or at least receive the sermon on Sundays. It was relatively easy to be able to expand
that when the pandemic hit so that ALL (or most) of our members would be able
to continue to stay connected to a weekly or daily message.
This blog’s audience has grown
since then reaching outside the congregational membership to include
others. We are blessed and happy to
provide this opportunity. As you know,
finances can be tight for congregations and any non-profit. Our churches, at both Bethesda and Olivet,
provide meaningful ministries to our local communities; afterschool programming
for kids, the local Food Bank, Elizabeth’s Guardian Angels, etc…. If you have found this blog and our worship
services/meditations helpful, it would be a great blessing to us if you’d help
with those ministries by providing a monetary contribution to either
church.
Olivet Presbyterian
Church
726 Fourth Street Box 526
West Elizabeth, PA 15088
Or
Bethesda United Presbyterian Church
314 S. 3rd
Avenue
Elizabeth, PA 15037
Prelude
Announcements:
·
Please feel free to join us for in person worship
at Olivet (West Elizabeth, PA) at 9:45am or at Bethesda (Elizabeth, PA) at
11:15am.
Sounding of the Hour (at Bethesda only)
Call to Worship
L: Fools say in their hearts, “There is no
God.”
P: Too often we have been fools in word or
deed.
L: Still, the Lord looks from heaven for
those who seek God.
P: May we be found among the company of the
righteous!
L: Deliver us from evil, O God. Restore Your people’s fortunes.
P: Lord, only in You can we find refuge.
Opening Hymn – Immortal, Invisible, God Only
Wise
Prayer of Confession
Who among us
hasn’t wondered if God really exists?
Who among us hasn’t recoiled in revulsion when reflecting upon the
depraved and loathsome acts we might be capable of? Who among us hasn’t felt the agony of a life
lived apart from God’s love? Yet in our
emptiness, in the depths of our despair, the Lord seeks us out; the Lord hears
our cries; the Lord becomes our refuge and our strength. In You, gentle Savior, our hearts are glad;
we rejoice in Your salvation. We pray to
You in spirit and in truth. (Silent
prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: The love of God is your firm foundation;
by faith you are rooted deeply in the Lord.
May you know the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of
Christ, which surpasses all human knowledge and understanding.
P: 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
Gracious God, we give you thanks for all the blessings that
come from Your hand, especially for the invitation to live as Your holy people,
the body of Christ. We lift in prayer
today Your church, in all its various forms, as it struggles to proclaim Your
gracious reign in a world dedicated to wealth and possessions. Strengthen the people of this planet to live
into an attitude of peace and goodwill. We
pray for strength of its leaders to model exemplary behavior and to act with
peace and goodwill towards others. We
also pray for the nations around that world that struggle with war, violence,
and injustice, grant Your full measure of peace and righteousness. We especially lift up to You the people of
countries that have been torn apart by violence, civil war, invasions, and
radical ideologies that hurt and destroy. Lord, we pray for the sick and those facing
death, we pray that You send Your Spirit and Your people to bring comfort and
hope. Having acknowledged our loved
ones, we pray for…
Gracious God, as we
endeavor to let Christ rule our hearts, open those hearts that we may give and
serve gladly; that the witness of those who have gone before us is our own
guiding hand.
And in this time of silence, we lift our personal petitions to you…
These and all other things you know we need, we ask in the name of Jesus, the only name that matters as we pray together 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 – It is Well With My Soul
Scripture Reading(s):
OT – Psalm 14
NT – Ephesians 3:14-21
Sermon – “Bow the Knee”
“Where did you see God today?” The first time I heard that question asked it
took me off guard a little bit. I was an
assistant youth leader and the main group leader had just asked that question
to the lot of us as we were concluding the first day of our retreat. “Where did you see God today?” It was expected that each of us around the
circle would contribute to the day’s end and the discussion. As each person adding a short note anecdote about
seeing God in the laughter of their peers, or the gathering of helpers in the
kitchen to prepare the meal, or the fresh insight of a passage that had been
read earlier, my mind searched for something to add. “Where did I see God today?” This was not a question that I was used to
asking. “Did I see God anywhere, at all,
today?”
Of course, but
where? As each person continued to
contribute a wonderful moment of the day, my realization was that I saw God at
work all the time…like when the wind blew and carried a falling leaf back up
into its embrace and took it on a journey much farther from the tree it had
left behind, like when I observed two kids huddled together for some unrevealed
and unknown reason, possibly to support one another over a break up or some
other personal cause, like when the entire group of us sang earlier that night,
each person adding their voice to the music, I saw God working in every moment,
of every breath, teaching and lifting our hearts, minds, souls, and spirits to
become something new. I had never
thought of it that way before. I had
always looked for God in the extraordinary, but there was God in the ordinariness
of life and it wasn’t until others put voice to their vision of God for the day
that I realized it.
In that same
moment, I also realized that it wasn’t until we could more easily verbalize and
acknowledge the awesomeness of the profound moments of the day, could we see
God in the ordinariness of the day, as well.
In our passage
from Ephesians this morning Paul writes, “For this reason I bow my knees before
the Father, from whom every family in heaven and earth takes its name.” To verbalize and acknowledge the work of God
in the world, what has caused YOU to bow the knee, literally or figuratively, in
wonder at God?
Years ago, I had
a side job of driving my car around on a route throughout the Pittsburgh region
to record gas prices at local stations for a data company. Yes, it was a rather strange side job, but it
paid well. There was a road during my
travels along Route 60 that crested at the top of a hill, here you could look
out over much of Allegheny and Beaver Counties.
One fall morning I had just come to the clearing at the top of this road
and the reds, oranges, golds, yellows, greens, browns of the trees were simply
spectacular. I’ve lived in Pennsylvania
my whole life and have gotten quite used to the beauty of the fall colors, but
this was otherworldly. I pulled the car
over and just sat for a few moments taking in the power of God at work in the
cycle of the seasons. As the colors
shifted from early morning to the full light of day, I sat in my car as others
whisked by me. Had they noticed the
beauty around them or were they already focused on getting on with their day,
off to work, taking kids to school or daycare, visiting moms in hospitals,
worried about paying bills. I wondered
about each passenger in the cars that went by, prayed for their safety, wondered
about their ordinary lives. Could they appreciate
the beauty around them offered by God, take a deep breath, and see what joy
they could bring to others today? God
was giving them a gift this morning to see and experience, but did they know
that they too were a gift to others?
Another time I
was in Key West and I had heard that at sunset there was a show down in Mallory
Square. I headed there around 6:30 in
the evening. And indeed a show had
commenced, there were street performers everywhere, gathering groups of
by-standers to watch them and their acts.
One gentleman dressed in Pirate gear had a group of trained cats that
performed stunts, another team of acrobats were performing breath-taking feats of
somersaults and aerial stunts, another was weaving palm fronds into animal
characters faster than a magician next to him who was doing her tricks of illusion.
Suddenly, nearly
as one, the street performers stopped and with a great show of deference waived
their arms toward the sea and sky. We
all, the great crowd of us, turned our attention west across the vast ocean as
the sun sent ripples of color across the clouds, transforming from one color to
another, with highlights of gold splash across the heavens. We watched as the shadows elongated and the
sun took its final dip below the waves. There
was a hush of silent wonder which was broken by a single clapping of hands
followed by hoots and hollers and the entire assembly clapping, each person giving
thanks for the end of another day. I
looked around in wonder and amazement.
Every person there had a different story, a different background, a
different journey. Every person there had
come to Mallory Square on that day, at that moment for some different personal reason
and yet we all were acknowledging the power and wonder of God (in our own way) and
how God spins the planets, created the universe, and breathed out very lives
into us allowing us to share that experience together.
There was God,
doing an extraordinary thing, allowing the sun to set in spectacular fashion. As I began walking back to my hotel, the last
rays of light reflecting in the faces of those I passed, I wondered about their
lives. What thoughts raced through their
minds now that the day had ended and the night began? Were they aware of the wonder and beauty of
themselves, the gifts they brought to the world around them? That they themselves were the real miracle and
deserved a standing ovation just as we had given the sun? That those ordinary bodies, inhabiting ordinary
lives were extraordinary in the eyes of God.
The old question,
“Where did you see God today?” came back to me.
The first thought was that I saw God in the amazing sunset, in the colors
and the clouds. But looking around I
realized that I saw God in the faces of these strangers, in the lives that they
were leading, in their sorrows and in their triumphs. I saw God when a little brother picked up his
sister’s hat and handed it to her. I saw
God when a couple leaned into one another for a kiss and take each other’s hand. I saw God in the weather-worn face of the man
who held out a cup for whatever donations the people on Mallory Square were willing
to place in it. I saw God when I
remembered the man with the cat act, the troupe of acrobats, the weaving
fingers, and the illusionist.
“Where did you
see God today?”
Everywhere!
In the grains of
sand, in the refreshing breeze of the ocean, and in the extraordinary colors of
the heavens, but even more so in the faces of strangers returning to their ordinary
lives. Here is where God is really at work.
And in the second
verse of our passage we read this morning Paul writes, “I pray that, according
to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in the
your inner being with power through His Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in
your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.”
God is at work in
you. From the extraordinary to the
ordinary, God is strengthening you for a purpose. Do you know what it is? A second question comes to mind after “Where
did you see God today?” “Where did God
use you today?” This is a very personal
question and only you can answer it. But
just as God has been present in all things today, you are also present to do
good or to do harm, to reach out to others or to close yourself off.
We are called to
be God’s ambassadors in the world.
What is God doing with your life? What new things are you learning about
yourself? What ways is God using you and
blessing you?
And finally, Paul’s last verse in this
passage, “Now to him, who is able to do far more than we could ever ask or
think, to him who by the power at work within you is able to accomplish all
things, to him be the glory and honor and praise.”
AMEN.
Offertory
Doxology
Prayer of Dedication
Lord, from emptiness, You create substance –
when we hunger, You fill us from Your abundance; when all seems lost, You bring
hope and salvation, You make possible the impossible. With these gifts, we give thanks for all the blessings
You give us each day. AMEN.
Closing Hymn – Lord, Dismiss Us With Thy
Blessing
Benediction
May you know the richness and
fullness of God’s grace. May you
experience every dimension of the love of Christ. May the Spirit dwell within you through
faith. To the Holy One, whose power
works within us to accomplish more than we could ever ask or imagine or
comprehend be glory forever and ever. AMEN.
Postlude
