Open Arms Sunday worship 17May2020

Sixth Sunday of Easter
Divine Service
May 17, 2020

Welcome to Open Arms Lutheran Church, we're very glad you've come to worship with us!  God bless our worship together, as He gives us His gifts!

Click here for the video:  Open Arms Worship, Sunday May 17, 2020  

Opening Song:    Children of God 

Invocation

V:  In the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit,

C:  Amen

Confession and Absolution

V:   O God our Father, we confess to You, that we are a prone to wander, following many different false idols and gods, rather than You.  We have sinned in so many ways, in our actions, our thoughts and the words we have spoken and not spoken.  We deserve nothing but punishment and rejection.

C:  O Father, have mercy on us, for Jesus’ sake.

 Silent confession of your sins

V:   Hear now the good news from God’s word:  Jesus your Savior took your punishment on Himself, gave up His life instead of demanding yours!  Accept this great gift He gives to you, that by His mercy, your sins are forgiven in the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

C:  Amen

First Reading                         Acts 17:16-31

Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.  So, he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.  Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.  And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?  For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.”  Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.  For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.  The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.  And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for

“ ‘In him we live and move and have our being’;

as even some of your own poets have said,

“ ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ ”

Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.  The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,  because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

V:   This is the Word of the Lord.   

C:  Thanksbe to God.

Epistle Reading                     1 Peter 3:13-22

Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good?  But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.  For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.  Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

V:   This is the Word of the Lord.   

C:  Thanksbe to God.

Holy Gospel                           John 14:15-21
V:  The Holy Gospel according to St. John, the 14^thchapter.

C:  Gloryto You, O Lord.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.  Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.  In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.   Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

V:   This is the Word of the Lord.  

C:  Praise to You, O Christ.

Sermon    

The Nicene Creed     

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried.  And the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures and ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father.  And He will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.  And I believe in one holy Christian and apostolic Church, I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.  Amen.

Prayers of the Church

The 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 trespasses

          as we forgive those

          who trespass 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  

Closing Song:   Everything That Has Breath