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.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY
Together we acknowledge the Traditional Custodians on whose lands we stand today and pay our respects to the Elders past, present and future. We commit to walking together across these lands in friendship, trust, justice and healing.
LIGHTING THE CANDLE
The light of Christ Jesus be with us all
Let us delight in the gift of Christ,
and on his teaching meditate by day and night.
The wisdom that we receive is uncontaminated,
peace-loving, gentle, reasonable, full of the fruits of mercy,
sure and sincere.
Please God, open our lips!
And our mouths shall declare your praise!
Let us pray.
God of enduring certainties and sublime surprises, we gather in our Church to delight in your love and to worship you.
Not as fearful supplicants do we come, but as those willing people to learn more
We are here to say thank you, and to join the mighty choir of voices, from across the centuries and around the world, in praising you as the God of love and peace.
Amen!
Slideshow of nature
HYMN For the beauty of the earth
For the beauty of the earth,
for the glory of the skies,
for the love which from our birth
over and around us lies.
Refrain:
Christ, our Lord, to you we raise
this, our hymn of grateful praise.
For the wonder of each hour
of the day and of the night,
hill and vale and tree and flower,
sun and moon and stars of light,
[Refrain]
For the joy of human love,
brother, sister, parent, child,
friends on earth, and friends above,
for all gentle thoughts and mild,
[Refrain]
For yourself, best gift divine,
to the world so freely given,
agent of God’s grand design:
peace on earth and joy in heaven.
[Refrain]
CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE
Let us pray.
If our minds have been wide open to foolish innovations but half-shut or closed to the new things you wish to speak to us
Lord have mercy.
If our hearts are occupied with the lusts and worries of the secular world, leaving little space for the sweet sanity of trust and love;
Christ have mercy.
If our souls have been taken over by pride, ingrained with stubborn errors, or subverted by a creeping indifference;
Lord have mercy.
God of amazing grace, pity us as we thrash around in the tangled web of our own making. Forgive our sins and deliver us from captivity to anything less than your Son Jesus. May he possess us mind, heart and soul, and by that possession, let us find once more the paradoxical liberty of the children of God. Through this same Lord Jesus, our friend and Redeemer. Amen!
FORGIVENESS
When Christ sets us free we are free indeed. Trust him and exercise our liberty as those who have been granted the keys of the city of God! Amen
A CREED
Through no achievement of our own but purely by grace, we place our trust in the living God.
In spite of earthquake, tsunami, volcano, cyclone, flood, famine and fire, we believe.
In spite of the vast cosmos and the apparent smallness of each human life, we believe.
In spite of some insipient doubts within us and much cynicism around us, we believe.
In spite of cancer and malaria, aids, and meningococcal, decay,dementia and death, we believe.
In spite of the ridicule of the arrogant and the scorn of the self-satisfied, we believe.
In spite of human greed, terrible injustices, cruel abuse, terrorism and war, we believe.
In spite of some good people suffering while many evil seem to prosper, we believe.
Because of Christ Jesus, joy of loving hearts, we believe God loves us utterly.
Through his humble birth, healing deeds, and penetrating words, we believe.
Through his humiliation and suffering, his trials and crucifixion, we believe.
Through his victory over death, and his Presence with us forever, we believe.
Introduction to Bible reading
BIBLE READING Proverbs 31 10-31
A ‘woman of courage’ who can find?
For her value is far more than corals.
The heart of her ‘lord’ trusts in her
and he lacks no spoil.
She does him good and not evil,
all the days of her life.
She seeks wool and flax
and joyfully works with her palms
She is like merchant ships ;
she brings in food from afar
And she arises still in the night
and gives prey to her house
and a portion to her servant girl
She considers a field and buys it;
from the fruit of her palms she plants a vineyard.
She girds her loins in strength,
and strengthens her arms
She perceives that her gain is good;
her lamp will not be quenched in the night
She stretches out her hands to the spindle-whorl,
and ‘her palms grasp the whirl of the spindle
Her palm she spreads out to the poor
and her hands she stretches out to the needy.
She will have no fear of snow for her house,
because all of her house is in scarlet clothing
Coverings, she makes for herself,
linen and red-purple garment
Her lord is known in the gates,
in his seat with the elders of the land.
Linen garment she makes and sells
and a belt she gives to the traders
Strength and honour are her clothing
and she laughs at the coming day
Her mouth she opens in wisdom
and the law of kindness is on her tongue
She watches the ways of her house
and does not eat bread of sluggishness
Her sons arise and call her blessed
and her lord praises her.
Many daughters have done courage
but you ascend above all of them.
Favor is deception and beauty is breath;
a woman who fears Yahweh she shall be praised
Give to her from the fruit of her hands
and let her deeds praise her in the gates.
HYMN The Great Love of God
The great love of God
Is revealed in the Son,
Who came to this earth
To redeem everyone.
That love, like a stream
Flowing clear to the sea,
Makes clean every heart
That from sin would be free.
It binds the whole world,
every barrier it breaks,
The hills it lays low,
And the mountains it shakes
It’s yours, it is ours,
O how lavishly given!
The pearl of great price,
And the treasure of heaven..
John’s message
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
HYMN Lord of all hopefulness Lord of all Joy
Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy,
whose trust, ever childlike, no cares could destroy:
Be there at our waking, and give us, we pray,
your bliss in our hearts, Lord, at the break of the day.
Lord of all eagerness, Lord of all faith,
whose strong hands were skilled at the plane and the lathe:
Be there at our labours, and give us, we pray,
your strength in our hearts, Lord, at the noon of the day.
Lord of all kindliness, Lord of all grace,
your hands swift to welcome, your arms to embrace:
Be there at our homing, and give us, we pray,
your love in our hearts, Lord, at the eve of the day.
Lord of all gentleness, Lord of all calm,
whose voice is contentment, whose presence is balm:
Be there at our sleeping, and give us, we pray,
your peace in our hearts, Lord, at the end of the day.
GOING OUT
Let us go in peace to enjoy and employ our gift of faith.
Fear neither outward foe nor inner temptation.
Rejoice in our blessings and smile in our adversities.
Our help is in the name of God.
The inexhaustible grace of Christ crucified, the tireless, eternal love of God, and the live-in Guest who fills households of faith with many gifts will be with us this day and for evermore.
Amen!
BENEDICTION SONG May Light Come into your eyes
May light come into your eyes,
May hope spring up in your heart,
May peace guide all of your mind
and keep you in God and keep you in God
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