17th Sunday after Pentecost September 15, 2024
Welcome & Announcements
*Call to Worship: Psalm 116:1-9 (pg. 604)
*Opening Prayer …………………………………………….. pg. 2
OPENING HYMN ------------------------------------------------- # 181
“O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing”
*Confession of Sins ……………………………..................... pg. 2
*Kyrie …………………………………………………….…. pg. 3
*Declaration of Grace …………………………………..…… pg. 3
Scripture Lessons: 1st Reading: Isaiah 50:4-10 (pg. 726)
2nd Reading: James 3:1-12 (pg. 1200)
*The Gospel: Mark 9:14-29 (pg. 1004)
*Response to the Gospel …………………………………..… pg. 3
*Confession of Faith – The Apostles’ Creed ………………... pg. 4
*Gloria Patri …………………………………………………. pg. 4
The Offering
*Response: “Create in Me A Clean Heart O God” ……..….. pg. 17
*Prayers of the Church
HYMN --------------------------------------------------------------- # 183
“All Creatures of Our God and King”
Sermon: “I Believe; Help My Unbelief!”
THE CLOSING HYMN ------------------------------------------- # 288
“Take the Name of Jesus with You”
*The Lord’s Prayer ………………………………………….. pg. 5
*The Benediction ………………………………..…………... pg. 5
*Three-fold Amen ………………………………...…………. pg. 5
THE DOXOLOGY ……………………………...………….. # 390
Organ Postlude
(* Indicates where congregation should stand if possible)
Announcements
Monthly hymn: #183: "All Creatures of
Our God and King"
Memory verse: Psalm
111:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those
who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures
forever!”
Church Surveys. Please work to provide your completed surveys within the next week or two. If you have misplaced your survey we can provide you another as needed.
True Woman Bible Study, will be held on Wednesday, September 18th, at 7:00 p.m. Meet at the Parsonage. Lesson 1: Gender Matters. There is still time to sign up and get a book!
Be sure to check out the Church Cleaning Lists on basement counter.
Next Sunday is Mission Festival Sunday, Worship 10:00 a.m. Sunday School – 9:00 a.m. The speaker this year is Larry Reinhold from Rainbow Ranch. Mission Festival Offering will be directed 50/50 between Rainbow Ranch and Home Missions unless designated otherwise. A meal will follow the service. Please invite friends and neighbors to attend.
This week’s activities:
15th – Wed. – FLY Bible study & Meeting, 7:00 p.m.
- True Woman Bible Study at Parsonage, 7:00 p.m.
22nd – Sun. – Sunday School, 9:00 a.m.
Mission Festival Worship Service, 10:00 a.m.
with meal to follow.
CHURCH CLEANING: Sept. 16 – 22 Nicole Whitney & Renee Olson
*Call to Worship: Psalm 116:1-9
116 I love the Lord, because he has heard
my voice and my pleas for mercy.
2 Because
he inclined his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as
long as I live.
3 The snares of death
encompassed me;
the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
I
suffered distress and anguish.
4 Then I
called on the name of the Lord:
“O Lord, I pray, deliver my
soul!”
5 Gracious is the Lord,
and righteous;
our God is merciful.
6 The Lord preserves the
simple;
when I was brought low, he saved me.
7 Return, O my soul, to your rest;
for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.
8 For you have delivered my
soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from
stumbling;
9 I will
walk before the Lord
in the land of the living.
1st Reading: Isaiah 50:4-10
4 The Lord God has given me the
tongue of those who are taught,
that I may know how to sustain
with a word him who is weary.
Morning by morning he awakens; he
awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.
5 The
Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious;
I
turned not backward.
6 I gave my back
to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the
beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.
7 But the Lord God helps
me; therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set
my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame.
8 He who vindicates me is near. Who
will contend with me?
Let us stand up together. Who is my
adversary? Let him come near to me.
9 Behold,
the Lord God helps me; who will declare me guilty?
Behold, all
of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up.
10 Who among you fears the Lord and
obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and
has no light
trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.
2nd Reading: James 3:1-12
3 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 2 For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. 3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. 4 Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.
How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. 7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.
*The Gospel: Mark 9:14-29
14 And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. 15 And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him. 16 And he asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?” 17 And someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. 18 And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” 19 And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” 20 And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. 21 And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. 22 And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” 23 And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” 24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” 25 And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” 26 And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. 28 And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” 29 And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”