Order of Worship 11-22-2020

SERVICE FOR THE LORD’S DAY

Christ the King Sunday

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA)

November 22, 2020; Ten Thirty in the morning

Minister: The Reverend Aaron Ochart                            Liturgist: Beverly Ross

Please silence all cell phones. 

Bold face indicates congregational participation.

GATHERING

WORDS OF WELCOME

PRELUDE Prelude in A minor         J.S. Bach

ADORATION

CALL TO WORSHIP   (Litany for the Reign of Christ)

Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice!

Christ will reign forever and ever. 

the Lord is robed in majesty and girded with strength.

Christ will reign forever and ever. 

God has established the world, and God’s realm will never be shaken.

Christ will reign forever and ever. 

God will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity. 

Christ will reign forever and ever. 

The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord. 

Christ will reign forever and ever. 

(Brief silence)

Jesus Christ, our Sovereign and Savior, you pour out your power for the powerless and your salvation for the lost. Remember us in your new creation, so that we may live in peace with you in the presence of the Holy One, to whom be all honor and glory, through you, in the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen. 

PRAYER OF THE DAY

God, whose fondness for humanity knows no limit, write your word upon our hearts, so that we need no scroll, no book, no script to know that you love us. Show us the power of your covenant, that you will be faithful to us, even when we fail to remain faithful to you. For the beauty of your word inscribed upon us, we pray, in the name of the one whose body and blood became your new covenant with us, Jesus Christ, our redeemer. Amen.                                   

HYMN 316            “Breathe on Me, Breath of God” 

CALL TO CONFESSION        

SILENT CONFESSION                                                          

PRAYER OF CONFESSION (unison)

Merciful God, we confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart. We have failed to be an obedient church. We have not done your will, we have broken your law, we have rebelled against your love. We have not loved our neighbors, and we have refused to hear the cry of the needy. Forgive us, we pray. Free us for joyful obedience; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON                     

GLORIA PATRI 579        

PROCLAMATION

FIRST LESSON                                           Luke 22:19-20                       

Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.’

MESSAGE FOR THE CHILDREN   

ANTHEM                   “Give Thanks”           Arr. Ken Barker

Give thanks with a grateful heart, give thanks to the Holy One,

Give thanks because he’s given Jesus Christ his Son.

And now let the weak say, “I am strong”; 

let the poor say, “I am rich”

because of what the Lord has done for us.”  Give thanks!

Second Lesson          Jeremiah 36:1-8, 21-23, 27-28; 31:31-34                                         

In the fourth year of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord: Take a scroll and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel and Judah and all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah until today. It may be that when the house of Judah hears of all the disasters that I intend to do to them, all of them may turn from their evil ways, so that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.

Then Jeremiah called Baruch son of Neriah, and Baruch wrote on a scroll at Jeremiah’s dictation all the words of the Lord that he had spoken to him. And Jeremiah ordered Baruch, saying, ‘I am prevented from entering the house of the Lord; so you go yourself, and on a fast day in the hearing of the people in the Lord’s house you shall read the words of the Lord from the scroll that you have written at my dictation. You shall read them also in the hearing of all the people of Judah who come up from their towns. It may be that their plea will come before the Lord, and that all of them will turn from their evil ways, for great is the anger and wrath that the Lord has pronounced against this people.’ And Baruch son of Neriah did all that the prophet Jeremiah ordered him about reading from the scroll the words of the Lord in the Lord’s house. Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and he took it from the chamber of Elishama the secretary; and Jehudi read it to the king and all the officials who stood beside the king. Now the king was sitting in his winter apartment (it was the ninth month), and there was a fire burning in the brazier before him. As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a penknife and throw them into the fire in the brazier, until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazier.

Now, after the king had burned the scroll with the words that Baruch wrote at Jeremiah’s dictation, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: Take another scroll and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll, which King Jehoiakim of Judah has burned.

 

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

 

SERMON             “A New Covenant, a New Kingdom”  

The Rev. Aaron Ochart

RESPONSE 

REAFFIRMATION OF BAPTISM

Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body-

Jews and Greek, slaves and free– and we were all made to drink of the one Spirit. …

Trusting in the gracious mercy of God, do you turn from the ways of sin and renounce evil and its power in the world?

I do.

Who is your Lord and Savior?

Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.

Will you be Christ’s faithful disciple, obeying his word and showing his love?

I will, with God’s help.

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH                             NICENE CREED          

  We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. 

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated on the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom shall have no end. 

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father (and the Son), who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who spoke through the prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen. 

THANKSGIVING FOR BAPTISM

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 478    “Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven”           

PARTING PRAYER

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not seek so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

CHARGE AND BENEDICTION

POSTLUDE       Toccata in E minor- Pachelbel