Worship
Service for June 29, 2025
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Wait for the Lord, like those who hope in
God’s mercy.
P: God’s steadfast love endures forever.
L: Watch for God, like those who eagerly
await the morning.
P: We watch for God, whose power redeems us.
L: Hear God’s hopeful word, like those who
long for pardon.
P: Sing praise to God!
Opening Hymn – Come, Thou Almighty King #139/8
Prayer of Confession
Out of the depths of despair,
we cry to You, O God. We are lost in a
world of pain and suffering. When we put
our trust in weapons of war, we find no peace.
When we put our hope in the health of our bodies, we suffer pain and
find no healing. Come to us, O God. Forgive our doubts and fears. Heal our brokenness, that we may rejoice in
Your steadfast love. (Silent prayers
are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: There is forgiveness and healing with
God. God’s steadfast love has the power
to redeem our brokenness and make us whole.
P: For
this we give thanks!
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
God of all
miracles, we wait for Your voice and direction.
We are often so busy with upcoming holiday celebrations and gatherings
that we forget to offer our thanksgiving for the blessings You offer. We are bombarded by the anguish of the world
arising around us – news of tragedy and war, blaring at us from all
directions. Hear our cries, O Lord. Open our hearts this day that we might become
people who bring peace and hope to those in despair. Comfort and heal our wounds. Bless us with wisdom tempered with
compassion. Remind us that we have
freedom because others who have gone before us have stood proudly by the
principles of hope.
Where
there is hatred, help us bring words of love.
Where
there are injustices, help us correct unjust systems and become advocates for
the voiceless and the powerless.
Where
there is apathy, empower us to bring the good news of Your gracious transforming
love.
Lord, be
with us this day as we offer our concerns for friends and family. Hear our prayers, O Lord. We pray for….
Most
merciful God, hear also our own deepest of prayers in these moments of silence…
Be with us
this day and all our days as we seek to follow You, praying together…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 – Ye Servants of God #477/38
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Psalm 16
Second Scripture Reading – Galatians 5:13-25
Sermon
– Fruit of the Spirit
Reading through our Galatian passage and working
on the message for today I realized that I’ve never done a sermon series on the
Fruit of the Spirit – concentrating on each one. So, I decided that it would make a great
series to take us through the summer. Although,
you’d perhaps like to hear a sermon series on the list of vices, Paul lists, I
think I’ll concentrate on the Fruit of the Spirit instead. Today, we’ll do a bit of an overview and
concentrate on the first in the list; love.
I’m really glad that self-control is listed last, because I think of all
of them, it’s the one that gives me the most difficulty and maybe between now
and the end of summer I might have a better grasp on that one myself. We’ll see!
In Paul’s letter to the Galatian church he
makes a list of vices which is pretty exhaustive enough to include just about everybody. And I honestly think that was his intent. Perhaps you don’t struggle with sorcery or
licentiousness, but what about anger? Do
you quarrel? Has there ever been just a
moment or two of envy in you? No one can
claim that he or she is completely righteous, or you’d be the reincarnation of
Christ. But we might be tempted to play
the, “Let’s see who is holier” game. That
game becomes a competition to feel better about oneself–at least my sin is not
as bad as yours. Of course, in that game
we get to decide which behaviors are more sinful than other behaviors. And where, exactly, does that lead? To what end?
It leads
to either moral superiority OR to feeling that you’re never good enough in
God’s eyes. I’ve known some people who
thought that being a Christian was all about trying to be good enough. Or some who felt that the only thing Church
people did was criticize the sins of others, never admitting their own. A lot of them eventually threw in the
spiritual towel, stopped going to church, or even believing in God
altogether.
When
Christianity is reduced to a few formulaic professions of faith and a list of
moral imperatives, a living and growing faith will not take root in the human
heart. It’s when we can trust that our
“righteousness” is not about us, that it’s not about what we do or don’t do. Instead, it’s about allowing the Holy Spirit
to do the work in us. An apple cannot be
proud of its achievements all on its own.
The apple required a lot of work going on inside of it – from the
beginning of a blossom to the large juicy fruit we can eat – in order to become
an apple, right?
However, Paul
was not saying that the desires of the flesh are bad in and of themselves. God created desire. And healthy desires are what give us life and
vitality. It’s when desires become
disordered; when they begin to control us that we find ourselves out of step
with God, Christ, and the Spirit.
A few examples:
A
perfectly natural human desire is for meaningful relationships. But left unchecked true intimacy gets
substituted with shallow, self-centered encounters.
A natural
desire is for enjoyment and contentment. But if unfulfilled, that desire might devolve
into excessive use of pain-numbing substances like alcohol, drugs or food.
Most of
us desire a safe home and enough material possessions that bring comfort; but
left unchecked, our wealth and our “things” begin to control us. We become stingy, ungenerous, or greedy.
We were
created to have a natural desire for community; but, left to our human
tendencies, our desire can easily become disgruntled feelings toward people who
grate on us like sandpaper. Which then
leads to exchanging true community with all its textured diversity for a
homogenous one in which we are only with those who are like us. Our church becomes like us. Our friends are like us. Our social-political
bent is filled with those who see the world like us. None of this represents the Kingdom of God in
all its beauty.
The first
Fruit of the Spirit is Love.
In Greek
this word is Agapé and it’s a term used in the New Testament to describe a
selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love. It is the highest form of love, often
associated with the love of God for humanity and the love that we, as
Christians are called to have for others. Unlike other Greek words for love, such as
“eros” (romantic love) or “philia” (brotherly love), agapé is not based on
emotions or feelings but is an act of the will, characterized by a commitment
to the well-being of others. It is this
form of love that is called for in the Fruit of the Spirit and given to us by
the Spirit. This gift is the highest
form of love that reaches out to others with unconditional love and grace.
Although
we often think that this godly love is only demonstrated in the New Testament
in stories like the Good Samaritan and of course the Chapter on love in 1
Corinthians 13, there are also examples of it in the Old Testament. Take Joseph, for example. His love for his brothers was unconditional,
even though they sold him into slavery, he welcomed them back with arms wide
open when they came to Egypt looking for food.
There’s also the example of David, who continued to love Saul, even
though Saul’s heart burned within him from jealousy and he sought to destroy
David and take his life.
But two
of the best examples of unconditional godly love, as given to us by the Holy
Spirit can be seen in the life of Fred Rogers, a Presbyterian minister who
sought to teach children that they are loved, that there is compassion in the
world, that we are all special and unique and yet equal to one another at the
same time. He never invoked the word God
in his television show and yet somehow God’s love poured out to all those who
watched it.
The other
person would be Mother Theresa, who gave her life to elevate the conditions of
people in Calcutta, to care for the wounded, the sick and the dying. Her unconditional love for the people that
were in her charge, showed us that we could be better simply by caring for one
another. A tiny little woman, of no
special means or influence, spent her life pouring out God’s love onto the
world to make it a better place.
When we
want to tap into the Fruit of the Spirit and wonder what we could do to have
the fruit of love be more prevalent in our lives think of these examples: Joseph,
David, the Good Samaritan, Fred Rogers, and Mother Theresa. I bet there are also examples of people in
your own life, or people you have personally known, who have shown God’s
unconditional love to you or to the people around you. Can you name them?
Think of
them when you think of the Fruit of the Spirit and love.
Christ
did not die so that in the afterlife we would finally be free and experience an
abundant life. Christ died so that we
might experience freedom and an abundant life in the kingdom of God today, in this
moment, in this life. Said another way,
we know we are walking with the spirit when our desire to know God becomes
deeper and more expansive.
Paul
lists nine fruits of the Spirit; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
THIS is
the role of the church. It is our duty
and our freedom. We must be a beacon to
the world. We must be that light set on
hill that cannot be hid.
The Spirit
filled life and one that is full and abundant is about grace. It is about being filled with love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and
self-control. If you are filled with
these things, the bad things that Paul also mentioned earlier in the passage
have no hold on your life.
The Spirit
filled life is about unfurling our clenched hands around things that aren’t
ours anyway, in order to receive what Christ has done for us, what Christ
taught us, what the Holy Spirit whispers to us, and what God’s creation sings
to us every day, revealing the Creator’s deep love for us.
The Spirit
filled life based in freedom is a life measured by a love that sees responsibility
toward neighbor as Jesus revealed in his story about the Good Samaritan, our
responsibility to the orphan and the widow, to the outcast and the
foreigner. Each of these has stories and
illustrations in further Biblical texts.
The great
20th-century religious thinker Reinhold Niebuhr put it this way: “Basically
love means . . .being responsible, responsible to our family, toward our
civilization, and now by the pressures of history, toward the universe of
humankind.”
Paul makes
it clear that in the church there is to be no division. Here we become a community of flesh and blood
where all the old barriers are finally, at last, overcome. Let us together, through the power of the
Holy Spirit, bearing fruit in our lives, proclaim to the world this gospel of
love.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Healing
and Transforming God, we give You thanks that You continually bless us. Take these gifts, multiply their impact on
the world, and bring us all ever closer to Your reign of peace and love. AMEN.
Closing
Hymn – Lord, Dismiss Us With Thy
Blessing #237 2 vs. Brown
Benediction –
Friends, be
empowered and be strengthened by the knowledge that God is there for you. Be a people of peace, love and hope. AMEN.
Postlude
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