SERVICE FOR THE LORD’S DAY
6th Sunday of Easter
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA)
May 9, 2021 Ten Thirty in the morning
Minister: The Reverend Aaron Ochart
Please silence all cell phones.
Face Masks must be worn at all times unless leading worship.
Bold face indicates congregational participation.
GATHERING
WORDS OF WELCOME
MINUTE for MISSION Evelyn Toby, PW Birthday Offering
PRELUDE I Know the Lord’s Laid His Hand on Me arr. Patricia Cota
Bell Choir (Sandy Cranfill, Caleb Hebert, Nancy and Mia Lauland, Karla and David Russo)
ADORATION
CALL TO WORSHIP Psalm 66:20
Blessed is God, who hears our prayers,
whose steadfast love endures forever.
PRAYER OF THE DAY
Faithful Deliverer, You have chosen us to receive salvation by faith, not by the works of our hands. Deliver us, then, from the law, and free us from the bondage of sin, so that with our hands we might serve you in purity of joy and response to your goodness, for the sake of Jesus Christ, who is all goodness. Amen.
HYMN 304 “Jesus Loves Me”
Children’s Bell Choir (Savanna Gilbeau, Joseph Hebert, Brock Moore, Asher Ochart, Kate Russo, Michael and Sean Sens)
Jesus loves me! This I know, For the Bible tells me so;
Little ones to Him belong; They are weak, but He is strong.
Refrain; Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.
CALL TO CONFESSION
SILENT CONFESSION
PRAYER OF CONFESSION (unison)
Almighty God, in raising Jesus from the grave, you shattered the power of sin and death. We confess that we remain captive to doubt and fear, bound by the ways that lead to death. We overlook the poor and the hungry, and pass by those who mourn; we are deaf to the cries of the oppressed, and indifferent to calls for peace; we despise the weak, and abuse the earth you made.
Forgive us, God of mercy. Help us to trust your power to change our lives and make us new, that we may know the joy of life abundant given in Jesus Christ, the risen Lord. Amen.
ASSURANCE OF PARDON
GLORIA PATRI 579
PROCLAMATION
FIRST LESSON Luke 11:33-36
“No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar, but on the lampstand so that those who enter may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light; but if it is not healthy, your body is full of darkness. Therefore consider whether the light in you is not darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, it will be as full of light as when a lamp gives you light with its rays.”
MESSAGE FOR THE CHILDREN “The Best Gift on Mother’s Day”
ANTHEM “In Christ there is no East or West” Arr. S. Cranfill
In Christ there is no east or west, in Him no south or north;
But one great fellowship of God throughout the whole wide earth.
In Him shall true hearts everywhere their high communion find.
His service is the golden cord close binding all mankind.
Join hands, then, brothers of the faith, what e’er your race may be.
Who serves my Father as a son is surely kin to me.
Second Lesson Galatians 5:13-26
For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.
Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.
SERMON “The Gift of Mother” The Rev. Aaron Ochart
SPECIAL MUSIC “The Swan” Caleb Hebert
RESPONSE
AFFIRMATION OF FAITH Theological Declaration of Barmen
Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death.
As Jesus Christ is God’s assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins, so in the same way and with the same seriousness is he also God’s mighty claim upon our whole life. Through him befalls us a joyful deliverance from the godless fetters of this world for a free, grateful service to his creatures.
The Christian Church is the congregation of the brethren in which Jesus Christ acts presently as the Lord in Word and Sacrament through the Holy Spirit. As the church of pardoned sinners, it has to testify in the midst of a sinful world, with its faith as with its obedience, with its message as with its order, that it is solely his property, and that it lives and wants to live solely from his comfort and from his direction in the expectation of his appearance.
The various offices in the church do not establish a dominion of some over the others; on the contrary, they are for the exercise of the ministry entrusted to and enjoined upon the whole congregation.
The church’s commission, upon which its freedom is founded, consists in delivering the message of the free grace of God to all people in Christ’s stead, and therefore in the ministry of his own Word and work through sermon and Sacrament.
THE LORD’S PRAYER
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; and 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 “Faith of Our Mothers” Arthur Bardwell Patten
1 Faith of our mothers, living still In cradle song and bedtime prayer;
In nursery lore and fireside love, Thy presence still pervades the air.
Faith of our mothers, living faith, We will be true to thee till death.
2 Faith of our mothers, loving faith,
Fount of our childhood’s trust and grace,
Oh, may thy consecration prove Source of a finer, nobler race;
Faith of our mothers, loving faith, We will be true to thee till death.
3 Faith of our mothers, guiding faith, For youthful longing, youthful doubt,
How blurred our vision, blind our way, Thy providential care without.
Faith of our mothers, guiding faith, We will be true to thee till death.
4 Faith of our mothers, Christian faith,
In truth beyond our stumbling creeds,
Still serve the home and save the Church,
And breathe thy spirit through our deeds;
Faith of our mothers, Christian faith, We will be true to thee till death.
PARTING PRAYER St. Giles Cathedral (1637)
O Lord our God, you are always more ready to bestow your good gifts than we are to seek them. You are more willing to give than we desire or deserve. Help us so to seek that we may truly find, so to ask that we may joyfully receive, so to knock that the door of your mercy may be opened for us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
CHARGE AND BENEDICTION
POSTLUDE Promenade by Gordon Young