Worship Service at Church of the Dawntreader Thursday October 3, 2013 10:00 a.m. SLT
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
    Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ 
    Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
    www.zondervan.com
"New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989,
Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved." Designated by the initials, (NRSV).

Invocation:
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen
Confession and Absolution
We come before you, our Loving Father, Mother God, confessing most of all our need of you.
We confess that we have not always acknowledged just how much we depend on you.
We confess that we have not always loved you with all our heart, soul and mind.
We have not always loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We ask that you will forgive us and grant us your strength to conform more fully to your loving will for us.
We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Amen.
In obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is my privilege to declare to you and to myself, the entire
forgiveness of all our sins.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen

Prayer of the Day
Let us pray.
Benevolent, merciful God: When we are empty, fill us.
When we are weak in faith, strengthen us.
When we are cold in love, warm us, that with fervor we may love our neighbors and serve them
for the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
Amen

First Lesson: Habakkuk 1 & 2 (NRSV)
1 The oracle that the prophet Habak'kuk saw.
2 O LORD, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not listen?
Or cry to you "Violence!"
and you will not save?
3 Why do you make me see wrongdoing
and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
4 So the law becomes slack
and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous--
therefore judgment comes forth perverted.
2:1 I will stand at my watchpost,
and station myself on the rampart;
I will keep watch to see what he will say to me,
and what he will answer concerning my complaint.
2 Then the LORD answered me and said:
Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it.
3 For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
it speaks of the end, and does not lie.
If it seems to tarry, wait for it;
it will surely come, it will not delay.
4 Look at the proud!
Their spirit is not right in them,
but the righteous live by their faith.
Here ends the First Lesson

Psalm 95 (NRSV)
O come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
2 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
6 O come, let us worship and bow down,
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
7 For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.
O that today you would listen to his voice!
8 Do not harden your hearts, as at Mer'ibah,
as on the day at Mas'sah in the wilderness,
9 when your ancestors tested me,
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Second Lesson: 2 Timothy 1 (NRSV)
 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,
2 To Timothy, my beloved child:
Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
3 I am grateful to God--whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did
--when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day.
4 Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy.
5 I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lo'is and your mother Eu'nice
and now, I am sure, lives in you.
6 For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands;
7 for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
8 Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel,
relying on the power of God,
9 who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace.
This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,
10 but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus,
who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
11 For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher,
12 and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust,
and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.
13 Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
14 Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.
Here ends the Second Lesson.

Gospel Lesson: Luke 17 (NRSV)
5 The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"
6 The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree,
"Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.
7 "Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field,
"Come here at once and take your place at the table'?
8 Would you not rather say to him, "Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink;
later you may eat and drink'?
9 Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded?
10 So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say,
"We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!'"

Here end the Readings from Holy Scripture.

 - Sermon -

We are told that the righteous live by their faith.
So just what does it mean to be righteous?
We will see that being righteous does not mean being perfect.
It means being made righteous in the sight of God by His grace, on the basis of our faith.
So just what is the faith we are talking about?
We will see that it is not adhering to certain traditional beliefs about God and certain churches.
It is living in a relationship with One who is greater than we are, reflected in our relationships with each other.
We often think that righteousness means living according to a particular set of rules.
It is possible to try to turn the Bible into a rule book.
People of faith have tried to do so for a very long time,
with varying levels of success.
The problem with that effort
is that the Bible is far more complex than any one method of trying to interpret it.
At its best, the Bible is a record of relationships,
the way people have related to God and to each other,
and they way they and others have tried to interpret those relationships.
Sometimes, it would seem to us that the relationships have gone far astray.
Sometimes we can gain great insight from the experiences of people of the Bible.
Generally speaking, the Bible does not give us simple evaluations of good and bad examples.
We are left to draw our own conclusions.
Prophets and preachers, law givers and teachers
all have had their points of view represented.
Again, the Bible leaves it to us to draw our own conclusions.
The least we can say is that many different points of view are represented in the Bible,
leaving hope that there is room for every one of us among the people of God, too.
So being righteous does not mean following certain rules.
There are rule books in the Bible.
Whole sections of the Bible are devoted to Law codes.
Those codes were written for people in Bronze Age civilizations whose lives and circumstances
were almost unimaginably different from our own.
At the same time, human nature has changed very little,
for good and bad,
and we can find many people whose experiences and whose faith we can relate to.
Faith is not about believing doctrines and particular interpretations derived from the Bible.
It is about taking part in the same kinds of relationships with God and each other
that people have experienced in all kinds of life circumstances.
The heart and center of a faith relationship with God is trust:
believing that God is with us, loving us,
whether we deserve His love or not.
None of us will ever deserve the kind of love He has for each and every one of us.
That is what grace is all about.
God's grace, His undeserved love for you and me,
counts us a righteous
because of the human life and death of His Son.
That is infinitely more than a doctrine about God.
It is the experience of people
who confess their sins to God
because we believe that God will forgive our sins
and who find in that experience of confessing and believing
a very real cleansing and renewal.
For me, that is what it means
to say that the righteous life by faith:
That is, those who are made righteous by the cleansing power of forgiveness
are living our lives with a strong foundation of trust in the One who forgives us.
His yoke is easy and His burden is light,
because He carries the burdens.
He makes it possible for us to follow Him.
Living the Christ-like life would be completely impossible for us
but for the fact that Christ lives in us.
He lives His own life of love and power through us.
We may be powerless over the sin and evil of the world and within ourselves,
but He is all powerful
He has already won the victory,
and He shares His victory with you and me.
When we remember this,
we are filled with new love and power.
It is not possible for us to love others who, like us, do not deserve it.
But He already loves us all in this way.
We need only let His love flow through us to others,
and we are enabled to love supernaturally.
His love nourishes us as it flows through us,
and we know that we ourselves are loved unconditionally.
This is a great mystery.
We will never fully understand it.
But a favorite hymn of one of my mother's sisters,
my Aunt Nancy,
sings about it.
It's one of my favorites, too.
The words are based on the conclusion of verse 12 of our Second Lesson:
"But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust,
and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him."
As you catch on to it,
please feel free to sing it with me,
especially the chorus:

I Know Whom I have Believed

1. I know not why God’s wondrous grace
To me He hath made known,
Nor why, unworthy, Christ in love
Redeemed me for His own.

Refrain:
But I know Whom I have believèd,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.

2. I know not how this saving faith
To me He did impart,
Nor how believing in His Word
Wrought peace within my heart.

Refrain:
But I know Whom I have believèd,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.

3. I know not how the Spirit moves,
Convincing us of sin,
Revealing Jesus through the Word,
Creating faith in Him.

Refrain
But I know Whom I have believèd,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.

4. I know not what of good or ill
May be reserved for me,
Of weary ways or golden days,
Before His face I see.

Refrain
But I know Whom I have believèd,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.

5. I know not when my Lord may come,
At night or noonday fair,
Nor if I walk the vale with Him,
Or meet Him in the air.

Refrain
But I know Whom I have believèd,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.

Amen.

Prayer of the People
Please type your spontaneous petitions in chat.
Each prepared petition is intended to remind us of the things we need to pray about,
so a brief pause will be provided for us to pray our own petitions,
either sharing them in the chat window
or praying them in our own hearts.

Loving God, we pray for each other, for those who depend upon us for prayer, and for all people according to their needs.
We ask that your healing power may prevail in our lives.
We pray that those in positions of public trust may be worthy of that trust as they act as stewards of power and wealth
for the benefit of all.
We pray that conflicts may be resolved in the context of relationships,
so that violence of thought word and deed may be diminished all through our world.
We ask your blessing for all who bear witness to the Gospel, so that relationships with you may be deepened for all people.
All these things, and whatever else you see that we need, we ask that you will grant for the sake of your Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ, in Whose name we pray.
Amen.
Our Lord's Prayer
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 sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever and ever,
Amen.
Benediction
May the Lord bless us and keep us.
May the Lord make His face to shine upon us and be gracious to us.
May the Lord lift up His countenance upon us, and give us peace.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
Amen +