JULY 21, 2024

Prelude          Mary Heller

 

 

Welcome and Greeting

 

 

Preparation of Our Hearts     

 

 

Call to Worship    

 

 

Hymn     # 253     Praise to the Lord, the Almighty          (Gray Psalter Hymnal)

 

 

Confession of Sin and Assurance of Pardon 

 

 

Psalter     Psalm 139     (NRSVUE)          Donna Lofgren 

 

1O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
2You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.
3You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.
4Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.
5You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.

7Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?
8If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.
11If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and night wraps itself around me,”
12even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.

13For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.
15My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

16Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.

17How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
18I try to count them—they are more than the sand; I come to the end—I am still with you.

19O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—
20those who speak of you maliciously and lift themselves up against you for evil!
21Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.
23Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts.
24See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

 

 

Prayer for Illumination                                            

 

 

Old Testament Reading     Habakkuk 1:1-11  

 

       1 The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw.

       2O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?
Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? 3Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. 4So the law becomes slack, and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous; therefore judgment comes forth perverted.

       5Look at the nations and see! Be astonished! Be astounded!
For a work is being done in your days that you would not believe if you were told. 6For I am rousing the Chaldeans, that fierce and impetuous nation, who march through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own. 7Dread and fearsome are they; their justice and dignity proceed from themselves. 8Their horses are swifter than leopards, more menacing than wolves at dusk; their horses charge. Their horsemen come from far away; they fly like an eagle swift to devour. 9They all come for violence, with faces pressing forward; they gather captives like sand. 10At kings they scoff, and of rulers they make sport. They laugh at every fortress and heap up earth to take it. 11Then they sweep by like the wind; they transgress and become guilty; their own might is their god!

 

Lector: This is the Word of the Lord.

 

Congregation: Thanks be to God for His Word.

 

 

Special Music          Mary Heller

 

 

Children’s Sermon          Grieke Toebes

 

 

Hymn     # 24     Open My Eyes That I May See          (Supplemental Hymnal)

 

 

New Testament Reading     1 Peter 1:3-12

 

       3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead 4and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, 7so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8Although you have not seen him, you love him, and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, 9for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

       10Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace intended for you made careful search and inquiry, 11inquiring about the time and circumstances that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated when it testified in advance to the sufferings intended for Christ and the subsequent glory. 12It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in regard to the things that have now been announced to you through those who brought you good news by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look!

 

 

Sermon     What Does God Have in Mind?          Glenn Sparks