Next Sunday, Sept 7, we will worship together at Olivet Presbyterian Church in West Elizabeth at 9:45am. A service of Holy Communion will be incorporated into the weekly worship service and a time of fellowship will follow.
Worship
Service for August 31, 2025
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Jesus said, “Love one another, even as I
have loved you.”
P: Love is more powerful than fear; it is
mightier than hatred.
L: Let the love which God has lavished upon
us be poured out to those in need.
P: Help us, O Lord, to witness to You by the
ways in which we care for others. Let the
Holy Spirit’s discipline in our lives be rewarded by Your grace.
L: Remind us, Lord, that we are called to be
Your disciples.
P: As we worship this morning, heal our
hearts and spirits and prepare us for service.
AMEN
Opening Hymn – Jesus,
Thy Boundless Love to Me #366 Blue
Prayer of Confession
We confess, O Lord, that we
love attention. We are pleased when
people single us out for something good that we have done, for some outstanding
act or trait of kindness that we exhibit.
We revel in the light; but the seductive light too often captures us and
we seek its brightness and glory and turn our backs on others in need. We have been given many gifts, but have failed
to use them to help others and to serve You.
Forgive us our vanity and greed.
Heal our wounded and aching souls.
Place us again on the pathway of peace and hope that is Your way to true
life. For we ask these things in the
name of Jesus Christ. (Silent prayers
are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: You have lifted us and dusted us off, O
Lord. You have claimed us as your
own.
P: Let
us celebrate Your love for us in lives of service to others, for You are with
us always.
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
For some of us here today,
Lord, we wish the summer would never end. We have enjoyed opportunities to travel, to
relax, to break away from schedules and hectic calendars. For others, there is the thrill of entering
the new season; looking forward to the challenges ahead. On this Labor Day Sunday we gather to receive Your
blessings once again, that we may recognize Your presence in our lives and use
the gifts that You have given to us in service to others, in the work that we
do both everyday and on special occasions.
Bless each day, O Lord.
As we think about the fall and
the fall calendar, we are reminded that our own children will be back at
school. We pray for them, for their families
and their teachers. But what weighs
heavily on our hearts today, O God, are the lives of the children lost and
injured in the recent shooting incident in Minnesota. Gracious and merciful God, we lift up to you
the souls of the two children who were killed, Fletcher and Harper. We ask that you comfort their parents and
families, who now face an unimaginable emptiness. Pour out your peace that surpasses all
understanding upon every grieving heart, and cradle them in your compassion. We also pray that you continue to be with all
those who were injured, send them your healing touch, both in body and in
spirit. Although this tragedy occurred many miles away
in a far away state, we are shaken and disturbed by the darkness that entered a
sanctuary, a place of worship and refuge.
We confess our confusion and anger in the face of such hatred. Help us hold onto the promise that the light
shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it. Call us to be instruments of peace, to bear
witness to life in the valley of loss, and love in the face of hate.
As we have offered names and
situations to You in prayer for Your compassionate healing love, we especially
pray for….
And as you hear our spoken words of prayer, also hear the
unspoken prayers of our hearts in this time of silence.
Lord, Enable us to be strong in our commitment to You by
serving others in need. Keep us open
always to Your abiding love. We ask this
in Jesus’ Name who taught us to pray together saying….
…Our
Father who art in heaven, Hallowed by 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 – I’m Gonna’ Live So God Can Use Me #329
Blue
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Psalm
141:1-4, Proverbs 25:15-28
Second Scripture Reading – 2
Timothy 1:1-10, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Sermon – Fruit of the Spirit: Self-Control
(based on Psalm 141:1-4, Proverbs 25:15-28, 2
Timothy 1:1-10, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27)
Self-Control; our last Fruit of the Spirit. It sounds so simple and straightforward. And yet…. It can be as deceptively and seemingly small
as saying no to another Oreo, more French fries, or a milkshake — or another
half hour on Netflix, or Facebook, or computer games — or it can feel as
significant and difficult as living out a resounding yes to sobriety and the
refraining from all other kinds of addictions. It is at the height of Christian virtue in today’s
complex world, and its exercise is quite simply one of the most difficult
things you can ever learn to do.
Self-control — our hyphenated English word is frank and functional.
There’s no cloak of imagery or pretense. There are no punches pulled here, no poetic
twist, no endearing irony in any of it. Self-control
is simply the important, impressive, and nearly impossible practice of learning
to maintain control of the beast of one’s own indulgent passions. It means remaining master of your own domain;
your body, mind, and spirit, not only in the practice of our everyday lives,
but also when faced with trial or temptation. Self-control may be the epitome of the
euphemism, it’s “easier said than done.”
Walter Mischel was a Stanford professor known for his experiments
in self-control. He was often referred
to as “The Marshmallow Man”. About 60
years ago, he created a test to see how various five-year-olds would respond to
being left alone with a marshmallow for 15 minutes with instructions not to eat
it — and with the promises that if they didn’t, they would be given two. The New York Times reported his findings.
Preschoolers who waited longest for the marshmallow and didn’t eat
it went on to have higher SAT scores than the ones who couldn’t wait. In later years they were thinner, earned more
advanced degrees, used less drugs, and coped better with stress. However, a follow-up study, 50 years later, done
in 2015, showed that many of the “couldn’t wait” kids, now adults, were just as
successful in later life. Mischel and
his colleagues came to the conclusion that although self-control might be an
inherent gift exercised in one’s youth, it can also be a learned behavior.
However, from a non-science background and having a more spiritual
leaning about such things, I would say that this self-control isn’t just
learned, but rather it’s a gift that some of us can’t tap into until we are
older and learn to trust and rely more heavily on the Holy Spirit or God to
control and direct our lives.
Self-Control is the climactic end of the list of the “Fruits of
the Spirit” and I think Paul was consciously aware of its place holding in the
list, knowing that this gift is one that is the most difficult to tap
into. I think that for those of us who do
not have an inherent sense of self-control it doesn’t feel like a gift that
comes from the Holy Spirit but rather something that relies solely on the first
part of the hyphenated word – self; that our ability to exact some sort of control
in our lives relies solely on self. It
is solely up to us. We must find the
strength inside of us, we must be internally capable of resisting, saying “no”,
refraining, and in control. We must find
the power within us to control ourselves.
Let’s go back for a moment to Mischel’s Marshmallow experiment. The children who succeeded in refraining from
eating the marshmallow used a technique known as distraction or distancing. Watching the five year olds, Professor Mischel
and his colleagues noted that the children turned their backs on the cookie,
pushed it away from themselves, pretended that it was something nonedible like
a piece of wood, or they invented a song to sing.
Those who couldn’t resist the marshmallow, stared at it and
wondered what it would taste like, they counted the minutes, and fidgeted. One of Professor Mischel’s conclusions is that
if you change how you think about something, its impact on what you feel and do
changes.
In various translations the word self-control is often translated
as self-discipline. So, I did some
internet searching for the differences between these two words. Are they interchangeable or not?
Here’s what I found: Self-control is the immediate ability to say “no”
to short-term temptations and stop unwanted behaviors, while self-discipline is
the long-term commitment to a plan or goal, involving routines and habits that
make positive actions automatic, ultimately requiring less active willpower.
Self-control acts as a short-term “stop”, whereas self-discipline
is the proactive “go” towards a sustained objective, with self-discipline
building the foundation for consistent good behavior over time.
Examples would be for self-control resisting that second doughnut
on your plate or stopping yourself from hitting the snooze button on your
morning alarm. For self-discipline it
would be consistently following a workout plan, waking up early as part of a
routine, or working towards a long-term goal.
In other words, perhaps, self-control stops you from doing
something wrong; while self-discipline makes you do something you know is
right.
This may be a good place to start, but the Bible has more to teach
than raw renunciation. Turn your eyes
and attention, yes, but not to a mere diversion, but rather to the source of
true change and real power that is outside yourself, where you can lawfully
indulge. The key to self-control and
self-discipline isn’t inward, but upward.
Today’s scripture readings from Proverbs and from 1 Corinthians
give us to very specific examples of self-control or self-discipline. In our Proverbs passage, King Solomon writes
that a person without self-control is like a city that has no walls and is
easily broken into. Rather than using
the translation of self-control, the Hebrew translation is closer to; “a person
who has no control over their spirit is like a city without walls and easily
broken into.”
The meaning King Solomon was trying to convey was that the person
without control of their spirit is defeated and defenseless when it comes to
temptation. If you use the imagery of
the city in its opposite form, a person with self-control or with
control over their spirit would be like a city with strong defenses, with high
walls surrounding the city so that any enemy would not be able to get in.
In another sermon about this Proverb, Pastor Bryce Morgan, put it
this way, if you are not in control of your spirit, then something else is. I think that is a significant comment to think
about. If you are not in control of
yourself, then something else is. What is
it, then, that is in control of you?
In our 1 Corinthians passage Paul takes it a step further. If you were sitting in the congregation when
this letter was being read, you would have been immediately reminded of the Isthmian
Games, similar to the Olympics, that were held in that region every two years. Members of the Corinthian Church had somehow
gotten the idea that Christianity or rather baptism into Christianity was
something that happened to you. That their
salvation had nothing to do with their own efforts. Yes that is somewhat true, but, Paul writes,
you have to participate. You have to be
IN the race. You can’t just enter the
race and not run. You can’t just sign-up
and not show up. You’ve got to train and
work hard.
Self-control and self-discipline is not a gift we receive passively,
but we receive it actively. We are not
the source, but we are intimately involved.
We open the gift of the Spirit and we live it, we train for it, we work
hard at it. True self-control is not
about bringing our selves under our own control, but rather under the power of
Christ.
True self-control is a gift from above, produced in and through us
by the Holy Spirit. Until we own that it
is received from outside ourselves, rather than whipped up from within, the
effort we give to control our own selves will ring hollow and eventually will
fail. Because we aren’t strong
enough. We need to rely on God.
You may be able to trick yourself into some semblance of
self-control. You may be able to drum up the willpower to just say no. But
you alone aren’t enough. As Christians,
we admit the inadequacy, and emptiness of trying to do it on our own. Instead we pray for the Spirit’s help, secure
accountability in Christ, and craft specific strategies to resist in saying “no”
for self-control and learning how to say “yes” for self-discipline.
Thanks be to God. AMEN.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Lord, today we lay before you gifts that you
have given to us, and we ask that in the giving, we might be transformed into
generous and disciplined servants; we ask that in the receiving all will be
blessed and multiplied. We ask this in
the name that is above every name, Your son Jesus the Christ. AMEN
Closing Hymn – Lord, I want to Be a Christian #372 Blue
Benediction –
Friends, may the
Holy Spirit strengthen the walls of your city and prepare you for the race
ahead by giving you the gift of self-control and self-discipline to say no to
temptations and yes to new healthy habits.
Go in peace to serve the Lord.
AMEN
Postlude
