You can watch the bible readings and sermon here, or scroll down to read the rest of the Sunday prayers and content, and watch this video at the point it occurs during worship.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF COUNTRY
With flannel flower and wattle, with acacia and blue gum branches we dance our own corroboree as we celebrate life with Christ Jesus our Lord. We welcome him into our lives on Dharawal land, gifted to them by the Creator since time immemorial. We acknowledge their land and their elders past and present joining our voices with theirs in our search for reconciliation and justice making.
YOU ARE WELCOME
All people are made in the image of God. If you know what it is to love and to be loved, you are welcome. If you have spent your whole life searching for such love and acceptance you are also welcome. We are all welcome to this safe place where Jesus is acknowledged as Lord. You are welcome in His name on this day of new beginnings. The Peace of the Lord be with you…
CALL TO WORSHIP Based on Psalm 98
O sing to the Lord a new song.
God has done marvellous things.
God welcomes us today and every day!
O sing to the Lord a new song.
God has done marvellous things.
God calls us into joy!
O sing to the Lord a new song.
God has done marvellous things.
HYMN
Come, O God of all the earth:
Come to us, O Righteous One;
Come and bring our love to birth:
In the glory of your Son.
Sing out, earth and skies!
Sing of the God who loves you
Raise your joyful cries
Dance to the life around you.
Come, O God of wind and flame:
Fill the earth with righteousness;
Teach us all to sing your name:
May our lives your love confess.
Sing out, earth and skies!
Sing of the God who loves you
Raise our joyful cries
Dance to the life around us.
Come, O God of flashing light:
Twinkling star and burning sun;
God of day and God of night:
In your light we all are one.
Sing out, earth and skies!
Sing of the God who loves you
Raise your joyful cries
Dance to the life around you.
Come, O Justice, come, O Peace:
Come and shape our hearts anew;
Come and make oppression cease:
Bring us all to life in you.
Sing out, earth and skies!
Sing of the God who loves you
Raise our joyful cries
Dance to the life around us.
Words & Music by permission GIA Publications Inc. Marty Haugen. CCLI Licence # 31951
OPENING PRAYER
God of loving goodness, at the dawn of creation, you brought light into the world,
light that brought warmth and energy to every living thing.
Since that moment, that light has never stopped shining,
it has never stopped making the earth a home for all its creatures.
This is how you love the world you made –
you filled it with light, you filled it with warmth, you filled it with yourself.
God of all loving goodness, today we celebrate Jesus Immanuel, God with us
your presence in our gathering, your Spirit in our lives, one community,
sisters and brothers to each other. We worship and adore you.
WELCOME & ANNOUNCEMENTS
BIBLE READINGS
Acts 10: 44 – 48 While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God. Then Peter said, “Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days.
John 15: 9 – 17 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other. In this we hear God’s word of new life. Thanks be to God.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
Lord Jesus, friend of all who stumble and fall, lift each one of us up this day, dust us off, speak words of both comfort and challenge to us individually and as a faith community. We continue to be overwhelmed by grief, of the world’s brutality in Ukraine, in Gaza, at Bondi, at Wakeley and now in Forbes. Fill us afresh with the power of your love that can change life within each of us where anger, hurt, self-centredness or disinterest burns. And if there is anything that weighs us down, today, help us to acknowledge it before you now and give us the courage to hand it to you.
With these prayers and those of our hearts we confess that you are the Christ and in you is found healing & Peace. Thanks be to God. Amen
HYMN
Come down, O Love divine
Seek now this soul of mine
And visit it with your own ardour glowing;
O Comforter, draw near, within my heart appear
And kindle it, your holy flame bestowing.
There let it freely burn
Till earthly passions turn
To dust and ashes, in its heat consuming
And let your glorious light, shine ever on my sight
And clothe me round, the while my path illuming.
Let holy charity, my outer garment be
And lowliness become my inner clothing:
True lowliness of heart, which takes the humbler part
Till we become the place
In which the Holy Spirit makes his dwelling.
Bianco de Siena, 1434. Public Domain CCLI Licence # 31951
MESSAGE “Let the love of God enfold you”
HYMN
Let us build a house where love can dwell, and all can safely live.
A place where saints and children tell, how hearts learn to forgive.
Built of hopes and dreams and visions, rock of faith and vault of grace;
Here the love of Christ shall end divisions:
All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.
Let us build a house where prophets speak, and words are strong and true
Where all God’s children dare to seek, to dream God’s reign anew.
Here the cross shall stand as witness, and as symbol of God’s grace;
Here as one we claim the faith of Jesus:
All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.
Let us build a house where love is found, in water, wine and wheat:
A banquet hall on holy ground, where peace and justice meet.
Here the love of God through Jesus, is revealed in time and space;
As we share in Christ the feast that frees us:
All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.
Let us build a house where all are named, their songs and visions heard
And loved and treasured, taught and claimed, as words within the Word.
Built of tears and cries and laughter, prayers of faith and songs of grace
Let this house proclaim from floor to rafter:
All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.
Text Marty Haugen. Tune TWO OAKS. © GIA Publications Inc CCLI Licence # 31951
OFFERTORY PRAYER
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE & LORD’S PRAYER
HOLY COMMUNION
The Lord be with you
And also with you
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them to the Lord
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
Dear friends, we come to eat a meal of bread and wine which Jesus has already prepared for us, knowing that without his Spirit present in our lives we would starve both as individuals and as a faith community and lose our way. This meal has been prepared at great cost to himself.
Yet it is freely given. An unearned meal of extravagant grace. We can only accept it with no sense of privilege or superior knowledge or of service. So come, freed to be your true self, come enjoy, drink deeply and eat well. There is enough for each one of us and more.
Jesus, Lamb of God
Have mercy on us
Jesus, bearer of our sins
Have mercy on us
Jesus, redeemer of the world
Grant us your peace.
WORDS OF INSTITUTION & DISTRIBUTION
HYMN
Holy Spirit, come confirm us
In the truth that Christ makes known
We have faith and understanding
Through your helping gifts alone.
Holy Spirit, come console us
Come as advocate to plead
Loving Spirit from the Godhead
Grant in Christ the help we need.
Holy Spirit, come renew us
Come yourself to make us live
Holy, through your loving presence
Holy, through the gifts you give.
Holy Spirit, come possess us
You the love of Three in One
Holy Spirit of the Father
Holy Spirit of the Son.
Words by permission Faber music. Fr William Brian Foley 1919 – 2000. CCLI Licence # 31951
BLESSING & BENEDICTION
This, this is the God we adore
Our faithful, unchangeable friend
Whose love is as great as his power
And neither knows measure nor end.
Joseph Hart 1712 – 1768. Public Domain. CCLI Licence # 31951
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