After Pentecost| Friday – 01 July 2022
+ In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Opening:
O God, your never-failing providence
sets in order all things both in heaven and on earth:
Put away from us all hurtful things,
and give us those things that are profitable for us;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Since you excel in so many ways—
in your faith, your gifted speakers, your knowledge,
your enthusiasm, and your love from us—
I want you to excel also
in this gracious act of giving.
(2 Corinthians 8:7)
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Psalms Reading: Psalm 30 – Joy Comes in the Morning
Songs from Scripture // Abe & Liza Philip
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OT Reading: 2 Kings 4:18-31 (NLT)
4:18 One day when her child was older, he went out to help his father, who was working with the harvesters. Suddenly he cried out, “My head hurts! My head hurts!”
His father said to one of the servants, “Carry him home to his mother.”
So the servant took him home, and his mother held him on her lap. But around noontime he died. She carried him up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, then shut the door and left him there. She sent a message to her husband: “Send one of the servants and a donkey so that I can hurry to the man of God and come right back.”
“Why go today?” he asked. “It is neither a new moon festival nor a Sabbath.”
But she said, “It will be all right.”
So she saddled the donkey and said to the servant, “Hurry! Don’t slow down unless I tell you to.”
As she approached the man of God at Mount Carmel, Elisha saw her in the distance. He said to Gehazi, “Look, the woman from Shunem is coming. Run out to meet her and ask her, ‘Is everything all right with you, your husband, and your child?’”
“Yes,” the woman told Gehazi, “everything is fine.”
But when she came to the man of God at the mountain, she fell to the ground before him and caught hold of his feet. Gehazi began to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone. She is deeply troubled, but the Lord has not told me what it is.”
Then she said, “Did I ask you for a son, my lord? And didn’t I say, ‘Don’t deceive me and get my hopes up’?”
Then Elisha said to Gehazi, “Get ready to travel; take my staff and go! Don’t talk to anyone along the way. Go quickly and lay the staff on the child’s face.”
But the boy’s mother said, “As surely as the Lord lives and you yourself live, I won’t go home unless you go with me.” So Elisha returned with her.
Gehazi hurried on ahead and laid the staff on the child’s face, but nothing happened. There was no sign of life. He returned to meet Elisha and told him, “The child is still dead.”
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Come Ye Disconsolate – Classic Christian A Cappella Hymns
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NT Reading: 2 Corinthians 8:1-7 (NLT)
A Call to Generous Giving
8:1 Now I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, what God in his kindness has done through the churches in Macedonia. 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.
For I can testify that they gave not only what they could afford, but far more. And they did it of their own free will. They begged us again and again for the privilege of sharing in the gift for the believers in Jerusalem. They even did more than we had hoped, for their first action was to give themselves to the Lord and to us, just as God wanted them to do.
So we have urged Titus, who encouraged your giving in the first place, to return to you and encourage you to finish this ministry of giving. Since you excel in so many ways—in your faith, your gifted speakers, your knowledge, your enthusiasm, and your love from us—I want you to excel also in this gracious act of giving.
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Generous Giver – Vintage Worship
music meets heaven
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+ All things come from you, O Lord, and of your own do we give you.
+ Lord God, you alone gave us the breath of life, and you alone can keep alive in us the holy desires you impart. We beseech you, for your compassion’s sake, to sanctify all our thoughts and endeavors, that we may neither begin an action without a pure intention nor continue it without your blessing. And grant that, having the eyes of our mind enlightened to behold things invisible and unseen, we may in heart be inspired by your wisdom, in work be upheld by your strength, and in the end be accepted as your faithful servants; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
Closing: FaithandWorship.com | John Birch
Let us make our way together, Lord;
Wherever you go I must go:
And through whatever you pass,
There too I will pass.
+ In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
10:16 “Look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. So be as shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves. But beware! For you will be handed over to the courts and will be flogged with whips in the synagogues. You will stand trial before governors and kings because you are my followers. But this will be your opportunity to tell the rulers and other unbelievers about me. When you are arrested, don’t worry about how to respond or what to say. God will give you the right words at the right time. For it is not you who will be speaking—it will be the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them. It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret. But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them, for the light makes everything visible. This is why it is said,
2:7 Dear friends, I am not writing a new commandment for you; rather it is an old one you have had from the very beginning. This old commandment—to love one another—is the same message you heard before. Yet it is also new. Jesus lived the truth of this commandment, and you also are living it. For the darkness is disappearing, and the true light is already shining.
The Peanut Gallery 