So again, good morning! Welcome. Just a couple of announcements. We do have the welcome pads in the center aisles here; please fill them out. That lets us know you’re here and lets you know who’s here with you. It’s a chance for us to get to know each other and to have the names of the people we may not recognize. Since I don’t see very many masks, I’m sure many people are unfamiliar after everybody looking like this for the past several months.
You’ll notice in the bulletin there have been a few little changes. Hopefully, it is a little bit easier to read. You’ll notice that there is a line for the offertory. We are not going to be passing the plates; it’s going to continue as normal; it will just be a time for music. I just wanted to highlight that it will still happen as normal.
So, are there any other announcements that I’m not aware of that need to be brought up at this point? Seeing none, we can take a few moments to stand up and greet each other and pass the peace of Christ as you feel most comfortable. Whether that’s standing up and waving, or actually going and greeting people, or offering a hug if it’s being received, please take a few moments. As we start finding our seats again, I do have a note: do we have anything from the mission team for this morning? Yes? Huh, we’re good? All right. Mrs. Joyce says we’re good.
So, as you find your seats, we welcome you again to Mansfield First to worship with us. If you are visiting, welcome! Thank you for being here; we’re happy you’re here. As you can see, I’m a different and new face down front. I am Pastor Joseph Jurger, for those who do not know me, and the last name is pronounced Jurger, like burger but with a Y, but it’s not spelled that way. Call me Pastor Joseph, Pastor Joe, Joe—not late for dinner—however you feel most comfortable.
So please listen now to the words of the psalmist as we enter into our time of worship: ‘Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing. Know that the Lord, he is God; it is he who made us, and we are his. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture.’
Please stand and let us sing our opening hymn of praise: number 214, ‘He Has Made Me Glad.’
[Music]
Heavenly Father, we come into your presence with gladness and thanksgiving and praise. It is a joyful time for us to gather on the Lord’s day, your day, to worship you, to celebrate you, and give you thanks for all the things you have given to us. We ask and welcome you here into our presence and beg and ask that you will always be with us, here and always, as we come and as we go. We ask this and pray this in the name of your precious Son, Jesus. Amen.
You may be seated.
As we come into our time for confession, it is a privilege as Christians to give our cares to the Lord and to know our sins and to acknowledge our sins before him and before each other. We come together together and pray together. The psalmist writes and prays: ‘Hear my prayer, O Lord; let my cry come to you. Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress; incline your ear to me; answer me speedily in the day when I call.’
Please join me with our unison prayer of confession:
‘Sovereign Lord, we confess that we do not honor you or give you the glory you are due. We work to replace you as the only Lord of our lives with ourselves, our sinful fleshy nature, and desires. Forgive us, we pray. Renew in us a clean heart, restore our souls, and help us to always remember that you are the author and ruler over all creation. You alone are worthy.
Lord, we humbly come and kneel before your throne, casting down the crowns of our own authority, submitting to your sovereign will and to receive your grace, mercy, and forgiveness. We pray this together in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.’
Please take a few moments to offer your own silent prayers and confessions.
The psalmist continues with some good news for us: ‘Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord. That he looked down from his holy height, from heaven the Lord looked at the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who were doomed to die, that they may declare in Zion the name of the Lord, and in Jerusalem his praise, when peoples gather together and kingdoms to worship the Lord.’
This is the good news of the gospel. We have been that people who are set free, and we are no longer doomed to die the final and eternal death because in Jesus Christ, we are all forgiven. Amen.
[Music]
Lord, you are the giver of all good gifts. We take this time and consider what you have given to us, and we offer up those things that we return to you, knowing that it’s not ours and that you don’t need it, but we are returning to you that which is your own. We ask that you bless our gifts, our tithes, our offerings, that they may be used for your purposes and to work and build your kingdom in this world. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
You may be seated as we will sing our second hymn: ‘All Creatures of Our God and King,’ verses one, four, and five, and that’s hymn number 63.
[Music]
All these much taller people, they get to call me Pastor Joseph or Pastor Joe, but that’s not going to work for you guys. Why? Well, I want you guys to think of me more as family, and I want to think of you guys more as family. Growing up when I was y’all’s age and size, my family all called me—and they still call me to this day—J, because my initials are J-A-Y. So, you guys can call me Jay, whether you want to call me Pastor Jay or just Jay itself, that’s perfectly fine.
You guys think you can do that? Now, I look forward to getting to spend more time with you guys and getting to learn all of your names. It’s going to take me a little bit. But I hope to come up with that fairly quickly.
But I got a question for you guys today: Do you all believe in miracles? Yes? No? Why not? You don’t know? Okay. Why do you believe in miracles? Anybody know? Yes, because God made them. Because God made them, exactly! And what are some of the miracles that God has done?
Okay, he’s healed people. Yes, he did part the Red Sea. Well, can y’all see any miracles in here? What was that?
Well, that’s not just because you know we’ve got great stories in the Bible about all these miracles that God has done, but there’s one really important one from which all the other miracles come, and that was creation. Because believe it or not, you guys are miracles. Do you know that?
Yeah! This building, these pews are a miracle because God made them! In the beginning, God made everything. So from that very first miracle, everything else that is has come to be. And so when you go out, and when you look around, I want you guys to think about and look for all the miracles that God has done and is doing all around you. Because if you look, you can’t help but see his work all around you.
Thank you, guys. You can go to kids’ worship now.
So let’s go ahead and turn our hearts to the Lord in prayer.
Lord, you are the ruler, creator, and author of all things. We come into this place to worship you and to be reminded that you are God. You remind us with everything we see because when we look out, your fingerprints are evident; they’re obvious. We ask that you help us to see them as we look around us; that we see you in everything and everyone around us.
We ask that throughout this time in this place, that you know our hearts. You know our individual concerns, our secret prayers, our worries, our fears. We turn those over to you because you are the one who can handle them. We can’t; it’s on you. We turn to you, acknowledge your power. We acknowledge and know and believe that you will do all that is right and good and necessary because you turn all things to the good for this life and for the life to come.
And we bring specific concerns and petitions. We pray for those in our community, in our congregation, and in the town who are looking for work. We all have a job to do or a need for a job to do to fulfill our vocations working as you have called us to be. But sometimes we need more or other than our calling, and we just need things to do to survive. We ask that you guide and help those who are seeking; let them find the work that is best for them and most honoring for you.
We pray for many in this congregation and our community who are in need of healing. There are many different concerns: those who are still recovering from COVID; people recovering from surgeries; we have people who just hurt and are broken and just need your help, need your light, and need to feel your presence and be made whole.
We pray specifically for Miss Angie Geisler for her recovery, offering thanksgiving for the ability she had to be safe and helped, and we ask for a speedy recovery and thanksgiving for how quickly she is already on the mend. We offer thanksgiving from the Beckers for the healing that has been done, and we ask that it continues to improve.
We pray for our children. Even though I was neglectful and didn’t pray for them here, I pray for them now that their hearts and minds be opened and receptive to hear your truth, to receive your love, and to know you. And for that, we need people to tell them about you, so we pray for our preschool, which, even though it’s not in session now, is hard at work. You are hard at work getting them prepared—the children, staff, and teachers—for this next year to come.
We pray that the preparations go smoothly, that the people you need to be here for these children are here, and that you gift them with all the wisdom and knowledge and understanding they need to help these little children.
We pray for our local EMS folks, our police, our firefighters, all the people who help to keep us safe—who are in authority to protect and serve not only your people but all people within your creation. We pray for our nation and our leaders; we ask that you grant them wisdom, that you grant them patience and kindness, and an ear to hear those who differ from them—and to listen and to work and to rule in accord with your will and your desire and your plan for this nation and for your people.
We pray all this in the name of your Son, who taught us to pray by praying:
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.
As you’re reading your bulletin, you may notice that these are some rather long scripture passages, and we’re going to look at a few longer passages of scripture this week and the next couple. So I beg your indulgence. I’m not always going to be quite so lengthy with the scriptures, but we’re going to want to look at some things from a little bit of a broad perspective, and so we need the context.
We need to see things, and ordinarily I am going to ask that you turn with me in your Bibles to read along. I will do that in a moment, but right now, as I read our passage from Genesis, I’m going to ask that you, if not close your Bibles, at least close your eyes and listen. Try to go back to a moment and consider listening as if this is something you have never heard before. Try to hear this as if for the first time, beginning in the beginning with Genesis 1.
‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.’
‘And God said, ‘Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse, and it was so. And God called the expanse heaven, and there was evening and there was morning, the second day.’
‘And God said, ‘Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together in one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas, and God saw that it was good.’
‘And God said, ‘Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on