Today's Worship Service - Sunday, July 6, 2025

 We will only be worshipping this morning at Olivet Presbyterian Church at 9:45am. with both congregations joining together for worship and communion today.  There will be no livestreaming on Facebook.

Worship Service for July 6, 2025

Prelude

Announcements:

Call to Worship

L:      God’s greatness is wondrous to behold.

P:      Everywhere we look, we can see the imprint of God.

L:      From the loftiest mountains to the crashing waters of the sea,

P:      There God’s greatness stands majestically.

L:      God’s greatness can be within the human heart.

P:      Let us praise God with acts of loving kindness and compassion.

 

Opening Hymn –        Morning Has Broken     #469         Blue Hymnal

 

Prayer of Confession

Merciful God, forgive us when we are paralyzed by confusion and doubt.  Strengthen our faith, that we may not only believe, but may be filled with the power to help and heal.  When others reject or refuse our ministry, help us to be forgiving and grace-filled.  Grant us the courage to accept those things that cannot be changed, that we may be freed from anger and resentment.  Forgive us when our disappointment clouds our wisdom and confuses our actions.  Guide us on this path of ministry that we may be filled with joy.  (Silent prayers are offered)  AMEN.

Assurance of Pardon

L:      God’s grace is sufficient for all our needs, covering all our sins.  God’s power is made perfect in our weakness, as Christ redeems our lives and reconciles us fully and completely to God.

P:      We give thanks to God with joy.  Amen and 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

Patient and Loving God, we have just come through the joy of a national holiday in which we have celebrated freedom and independence.  We have heard the mighty strains of marching bands, flags waving in the breeze carried by celebrants, fire trucks and floats moving through the streets, and seen all kinds of banners unfurled.  Our hearts have been moved by the events.  Yet you have called us to remember that it is only You who gives true independence, hope, and joy in your healing and restoring love.  Everyday the oppression of disease, poverty, terrorism, war and the threat of war pours into our lives and lays claim to our spirits.  Rather than feeling the freedom and the joy of the world around us, we often feel as though we are again in bondage.  Free us, O Lord.  Open our hearts to receive your healing words of comfort and hope.  Enable us to be people who offer compassion in the presence of sorrow; hope in the presence of desolation; light in the presence of darkness. Walk with us and strengthen us. Give us spirits of eagerness to serve and witness to your love.

We began our time of prayer with You, O Lord by naming those  names of those near and dear to us so we especially prayer for ….

 

Lord, we ask your healing mercies and blessings on us as well, help us to remember that we stand in need of those blessings, too.  And in this time of silence help us receive Your blessings. 

 

Lord, enable us to use the gifts which we have been given to serve you in all that we say, think, and do as we now prayer 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 – Let Us Break Bread Together #513/460  Blue/Brown Hymnals

Scripture Reading(s): 

First Scripture Reading – Psalm 30

Second Scripture Reading – Philippians 4:1-9

Sermon –    Fruit of the Spirit – Joy

As I mentioned last week when we read about the Fruit of the Spirit, that I’d spend the rest of the summer working on a sermon series that address each of the fruits Paul listed.  Last week we did an overview of all nine of them; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  And we concentrated on Love.

This morning we’ll cover Joy.  God wants you to be joyful!  Through the power of the Holy Spirit God wants you to be full of joy.  Paul warned us against the opposite of these things which instead would make us full of discontentment, dissatisfaction, irritation, and anger.  When you are in a state of joy, you are more aware, calm, and present for God and others. When you have joy, it is easier to care about others.  

If you are going to experience any of these Fruits of the Spirit you will need to practice them.  In verse 9 of Philippians 4, scripture says we are to practice these things.  And one of them is the practice of joy.  

Before we get started with this, I want to address something about practicing these things.  Practice implies failure.  When you practice something, you are going to fail at it, but you also will improve at the same time.  If you are practicing piano or golf or joy, you will at some point fail at it.  Yet, failure teaches us lessons that victory does not.  And it is through those failures that we’ll make the most improvements. 

Let me explain. 

Growing up I had a pretty natural talent for music and my parents encouraged me to learn an instrument.  I chose to learn and play the saxophone.  My parents also set me up with private lessons.   Since I had some natural ability, week after week, I’d pick up the saxophone and play the lesson my teacher had assigned me the week before.  Often, I was sight-reading the material at my lesson – meaning that I hadn’t practiced at all the week before.

My teacher would nod and say good job.  And we’d work on a new piece of music and he’d assign me more homework to do.  And week after week I’d come to our lesson not having done my homework, not practicing and I’d mainly do just fine.  But, there came a point where I began to struggle to sight-read the homework assignment and I started making a lot of mistakes.  I was failing at improving my abilities.  I’d gone about as far as my “natural” ability could take me.

One afternoon, my teacher looked at me and said, “You haven’t practiced this at all, have you?”  And I had to admit that I hadn’t.  The following week was the same.  And the next, and the next.  By this point, I’d been taking private lessons for about 6 years.  Normally, I was pretty good at playing the saxophone, but this material was tough.  And I just couldn’t fake my way through it anymore.  That week, I picked up my saxophone several times and practiced.  It took me hours to get it right.  I went to my next week’s lesson and played the piece the teacher had given me.  He looked at me and said, “Finally, you’ve learned how to practice.”  It was then that he took out his own saxophone and told me to play the piece again, but this time, he played along with me – harmonizing.  And we made music together.  It was the first time, he’d ever done that.  From that point on, we played together every week and I fell in love with music all over again.

We have to practice the Fruits of the Spirit, as well. 

Let’s talk about the practice of joy.  To experience to experience the full range of God’s carefully chosen fruits for yourself, you must cultivate an attitude of joy in your life.  Paul begins this section of his letter by saying in verse 4, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!”.  This may sound unrealistic to some, especially for someone lying in a hospital bed, the unemployed dad trying to provide for his family, the single parent with a challenging child, or the person in a difficult marriage.  Regardless of your situation, everyone can learn to rejoice in the Lord and muffle the voices of anxiety trying to control your life.

What does it mean to rejoice?  What is the difference between joy and happiness?

Joy comes from the inside.  Joy deals with your inner character, while happiness deals with your outward circumstances.  Happiness depends on what happens around you.  If what is happening around us is good, then we tend to be happy.  If our health is good and the health of the people we love is good, we will tend to be happy.  If our job is going well, we are happy.  However, if your happenings change, then so does your happiness.

Joy, however, has nothing to do with what is going on around you. Joy has everything to do with what is going on inside of you.  That’s why the writer of Hebrews 12:2, said of Jesus, “for the joy set before Him endured the cross”.  Jesus approached the cross with a deep inner joy, not happiness.  When you look at Christ enduring the cross you don’t tend to see a happy man, but if you have come to know Christ’s heart and mind from reading the Bible, you would see a joyful man because He was doing what he was called to do.  He was doing the will of God, even when he mourned and asked God to take this cup away from Him, he knew that it was the will of God for him to endure the cross, so he did so, with an attitude of Joy.

Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 8:2, “They are being tested by many troubles, and they are very poor.  But they are also filled with abundant joy, which has overflowed in rich generosity”.  Despite their “troubles” and being “very poor” they exhibited “abundant joy.”  This means that you can have joy in the middle of your problems and choose to be joyful when you don’t have a lot.  Joy comes from the inside.

Our current Bible study group is reading the book, If Grace is True, and in it the author talked about a moment in his life, “I was in a 1974 VW Beetle with torn seats and holes in the floorboard.  It was winter.  The day was gray and bitter cold.  The heater in my car didn’t work.  I eased up to the curb, careful to park so I could get out without having to put the car in reverse, which no longer worked.  I turned off the engine, gathered my college textbooks from the seat beside me, and in that moment was filled with joy.”  His circumstances were miserable.  There was no reason for him to have an ounce of happiness because of his circumstances, and yet he was filled with joy.

Joy is a choice.  Happiness is a reaction to what is happening around you.  But you can choose to rejoice.  It’s a decision.  You can choose joy ahead of time.  You can premeditate joy.  No matter what happens to you, you can always select the option of joy.  As a follower of Christ, you want to make the deliberate choice to rejoice.

This is what David did when he wrote Psalm 9, “I will rejoice and be jubilant in You”.  Notice he says, “I will rejoice.”  That is a phrase meant for the future.  You hear the same thing again in Psalm 31, “I will rejoice and be glad in Your faithfulness, because You have seen my misery; you have known the troubles of my soul”.  Notice carefully that David is experiencing both joy and misery at the same time.  You can be both unhappy about your circumstances, while yet being joyful in the midst of them.  Joy is a choice.

Joy embraces God.  To rejoice in the Lord is to acknowledge that God exists.  When you choose to rejoice in the Lord you are expressing a deeply rooted confidence that there is a God, that our wonderful creator God is in control, and that God is good.  What you believe about God is important.  Your understanding and belief about God directly impacts how you view every problem, every trial, every difficulty, every set back, every relationship, and everything else in life.

To rejoice in the Lord is to rejoice in who God is!  And that requires that you know something about God, through the study of the scriptures, hearing the journey of other faithful believers, and through your personal experiences with God. 

A proper understanding of God’s sovereignty in our lives is enormous.  Anxiety is often the consequence of perceived chaos, doom, things that are out of our control.  If you sense you are a victim of unseen, chaotic, and random forces, you will be worried and afraid.

Anxiety wants to control the situation; joy however, understands that God is in control.  As our joy increases, our anxiety decreases.  But if our anxiety increases, our joy also decreases.  Anxiety has a way of making God look small, weak, and not in control.  But Joy, on the other hand, has a way of making God look big, strong, and in control.  So, rejoice in the Lord!  Your anxiety will decrease as your understanding of God increases.

Another way to look at this is to see joy in the Lord like a thermostat, rather than a thermometer.  A thermometer registers conditions, while a thermostat controls them.  The thermostat of joy in the Lord sets your heart and mind on Christ so when the weather changes outside your spiritual temperature remains the same on the inside.  The pressures of the world may be heating up around you, but on the inside you’re spiritually calm because your joy is in the Lord.  The freezing winds of disappointment may be blowing against you, but you’re spiritually present because your joy is in the Lord.   The minor prophet Habakkuk in the Old Testament had learned this when he wrote,

“Even thought the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord!  I will be joyful in the God of my salvation.”

That’s what Paul is saying to us, even from prison, in this letter.  They have locked me in, but they have not locked my joy out.  Joy in the Lord is not determined by your personal prosperity or how well things are going around you.  Joy in the Lord is determined by the Lord who is in You, surrounding you, behind you, with you, and in front of you.  Circumstances change, but God never does.  So, for us to have the Fruit of the Spirit – Joy; anchor your joy onto God and Christ, because He is always with you.  He will never leave you nor forsake you. Consider God!  Contemplate God! Praise God!  Love God!  Enjoy God!  Don’t rejoice in circumstances, rejoice instead in the Lord!

Your load in life may be heavy, but you don’t have to rejoice in your load, but in the Lord. There may be no joy in your situation, but there is joy in Christ, our Savior.

And finally, practice this Fruit of the Spirit, on a regular basis.  As a pastor, I know that life hasn’t always been sunshine and roses for all of you, and I’m sorry for any hurt that you’ve experienced through life.  I’m sorry if your parents were not there and didn’t seem to care.  I’m sorry if people were mean and unkind to you.  I’m sorry if you were abused, laughed at, neglected, or ignored.  I’m sorry about the family members you’ve lost along the way.  I’m sorry if your life isn’t going the way you thought it would.  But do not let anxiety and anger be your response to life and fill that heart of yours.  There is joy inside of you.  Tap into it, practice it, make a choice for yourself today.  You can let anxiety take over and clothe yourself in hurt and pain, or you can put on God’s goodness, God’s sovereignty, and God’s love.  You can choose joy!

Thanks be to God.  AMEN!

Offertory –

Doxology –

Prayer of Dedication –

         May the offerings we bring today, O Lord, and the service we offer enable the stories of our hearts and lives to lift the work of the Holy Spirit into the midst of our church and our community, for the sake of Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

Communion

         The Invitation:

         Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  If you love me, rejoice because I am going to the Father.”  Today, we are invited to join with him at the Table and in so doing we join one another to be nourished by the one who tells us, “I am the Bread of Life.”  All are invited, so come.

         God’s blessings are poured out to us through the life, death, work, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ, by whose grace creation is renewed, by whose love heaven is opened, by whose mercy we offer our sacrifice of praise.  God’s love compels us to come to the Table.  Our hands are unclean, our hearts are unprepared; we are not fit even to eat the crumbs from under God’s Holy Table.  But the Lord, the God of our salvation, shares bread with sinners.  At the Table we are cleansed and fed with the precious elements of body and blood that God may live in us and we in him, and that we, with the whole company of Christ may sit and eat in God’s kingdom.

         The Breaking of the Bread and the Pouring of the Cup

         On the night before He died he had supper with his friends and, taking bread, Jesus gave praise to God.  He broke the bread, gave it to them and said, “Take, eat, this is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

         (Bread is distributed)

         When supper was ended he took the cup.  Again he gave praise to God and gave it to them and said, “Drink this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.  Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.

         (The Cup is distributed)

         Prayer after Communion

         Lord of all life, help us to work together for the day when your kingdom comes and justice and mercy will be seen in all the earth.  Look with favor upon us, your people, gather us in your loving arms and bring us with all the saints to feast at your Holy Table in heaven.  As we listen to Your word, worship you in majesty, long for your refreshing, renewing, equipping, and empowering Spirit, we ask for you to bestow on us Your Fruits of the Holy Spirit.  AMEN.

Closing Hymn –  Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise         #263/33 Bl/Br

Benediction –

Postlude