After Pentecost | Friday 01 Aug 2025
+ In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen
Opening prayer:
Almighty and everlasting God,
you are always more ready to hear than we to pray,
and to give more than we either desire or deserve:
Pour down upon us the abundance of your mercy,
forgiving us those things
of which our conscience is afraid,
and giving us those good things
for which we are not worthy to ask,
except through the merits and mediation
of Jesus Christ our Savior;
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
“Put on the new self,
created after the likeness of God
in true righteousness and holiness.”
(Ephesians 4:17-24)
From the Psalms: Psalm 107:1-9, 43 – “Psalm Sundays with Matt Lemmler”
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OT Reading: Hosea 9:1-17 (ESV)
The Lord Will Punish Israel
9:1 Rejoice not, O Israel!
Exult not like the peoples;
for you have played the whore, forsaking your God.
You have loved a prostitute’s wages
on all threshing floors.
Threshing floor and wine vat shall not feed them,
and the new wine shall fail them.
They shall not remain in the land of the Lord,
but Ephraim shall return to Egypt,
and they shall eat unclean food in Assyria.
9:4 They shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the Lord,
and their sacrifices shall not please him.
It shall be like mourners’ bread to them;
all who eat of it shall be defiled;
for their bread shall be for their hunger only;
it shall not come to the house of the Lord.
9:5 What will you do on the day of the appointed festival,
and on the day of the feast of the Lord?
For behold, they are going away from destruction;
but Egypt shall gather them;
Memphis shall bury them.
Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver;
thorns shall be in their tents.
9:7 The days of punishment have come;
the days of recompense have come;
Israel shall know it.
The prophet is a fool;
the man of the spirit is mad,
because of your great iniquity
and great hatred.
The prophet is the watchman of Ephraim with my God;
yet a fowler’s snare is on all his ways,
and hatred in the house of his God.
They have deeply corrupted themselves
as in the days of Gibeah:
he will remember their iniquity;
he will punish their sins.
9:10 Like grapes in the wilderness,
I found Israel.
Like the first fruit on the fig tree
in its first season,
I saw your fathers.
But they came to Baal-peor
and consecrated themselves to the thing of shame,
and became detestable like the thing they loved.
Ephraim’s glory shall fly away like a bird—
no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!
Even if they bring up children,
I will bereave them till none is left.
Woe to them
when I depart from them!
Ephraim, as I have seen, was like a young palm planted in a meadow;
but Ephraim must lead his children out to slaughter.
Give them, O Lord—
what will you give?
Give them a miscarrying womb
and dry breasts.
9:15 Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal;
there I began to hate them.
Because of the wickedness of their deeds
I will drive them out of my house.
I will love them no more;
all their princes are rebels.
9:16 Ephraim is stricken;
their root is dried up;
they shall bear no fruit.
Even though they give birth,
I will put their beloved children to death.
My God will reject them
because they have not listened to him;
they shall be wanderers among the nations.
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Farther Along | Johnny Cash (Official Video)
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NT Reading: Ephesians 4:17-24 (ESV)
The New Life
4:17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
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Take My Life – Scott Underwood / SFCH Worship
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Gracious and holy Father, please give us intellect to understand you, reason to discern you, diligence to seek you, wisdom to find you, a spirit to know you, hearts to meditate upon you, ears to hear you, eyes to see you, tongues to proclaim you, ways of life pleasing to you, patience to wait for you, and perseverance to look for you. Grant us a perfect end, your holy presence, a blessed resurrection, and life everlasting. Amen. | Benedict of Nursia
Almighty God, we pray for the peace of Jerusalem: Intervene in ways that only you can, so the whole world will know that you alone are God. Protect your people from the assaults of the evil one, and grant Israel’s leaders the wisdom and courage to do what’s right in your sight. Deliver all the hostages from captivity, and restore their souls. Comfort those who grieve and mourn the loss of loved ones. Protect the innocent and punish the guilty, that all may live in peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Our God, in whom we trust: Strengthen us not to regard overmuch who is for us or who is against us, but to see to it that we be with you in everything we do. Amen. | Thomas à Kempis
Closing: FaithandWorship.com | John Birch
The Lord bless us, and preserve us from all evil,
and keep us in eternal life.
+ In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
5:43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense;
If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
The Peanut Gallery 