Sunday Service from Connexion for July 2nd 2023:
Sunday Service from Hillside Circuit for July 2nd 2023:
Lectionary Theme: Obedience reveals the God of provisions
Occasion: 5th Sunday after Pentecost
Lectionary readings:
Psalm 89: 1-4
Genesis 22: 1-14
Romans 6: 12-23
Matthew 10: 40-42
[Click or tap on a Bible reference above to jump down the page to the Bible reading to read it for yourself and then click or tap on Back to top to come back here.]
Songs:
Here are the songs for Sunday morning service. Click or tap on a song to open it in YouTube.
Lord have mercy on us.
Come now is the time.
My Jesus, My Saviour.
King of Kings, Majesty.
We bow down.
Give thanks.
Great is thy faithfulness.
When we walk with the Lord.
Shalom to you.
You can listen and join in with prayers from the English Methodist Service Book. They can be found at the Prayers for worship webpage.
Children’s Address:
Sermon:
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Bible readings:
Psalm 89
1 Our LORD, I will sing of your love forever.
Everyone yet to be born
will hear me praise your faithfulness.
2 I will tell them,
“God’s love can always be trusted,
and his faithfulness lasts as long as the heavens.”
3 You said, “David, my servant, is my chosen one,
and this is the agreement I made with him:
4 David, one of your descendants will always be king.”
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Genesis 22
1 Some years later God decided to test Abraham, so he spoke to him.
Abraham answered, “Here I am, LORD.”
2 The LORD said, “Go get Isaac, your only son, the one you dearly love! Take him to the land of Moriah, and I will show you a mountain where you must sacrifice him to me on the fires of an altar.” 3 So Abraham got up early the next morning and chopped wood for the fire. He put a saddle on his donkey and left with Isaac and two servants for the place where God had told him to go.
4 Three days later Abraham looked off in the distance and saw the place. 5 He told his servants, “Stay here with the donkey, while my son and I go over there to worship. We will come back.”
6 Abraham put the wood on Isaac’s shoulder, but he carried the hot coals and the knife. As the two of them walked along, 7-8 Isaac said, “Father, we have the coals and the wood, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?”
“My son,” Abraham answered, “God will provide the lamb.”
The two of them walked on, and 9 when they reached the place that God had told him about, Abraham built an altar and placed the wood on it. Next, he tied up his son and put him on the wood. 10 He then took the knife and got ready to kill his son. 11 But the LORD’S angel shouted from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Here I am!” he answered.
12 “Don’t hurt the boy or harm him in any way!” the angel said. “Now I know that you truly obey God, because you were willing to offer him your only son.”
13 Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in the bushes. So he took the ram and sacrificed it in place of his son.
14 Abraham named that place “The LORD Will Provide.” And even now people say, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”
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Romans 6
12 Don’t let sin rule your body. After all, your body is bound to die, so don’t obey its desires 13 or let any part of it become a slave of evil. Give yourselves to God, as people who have been raised from death to life. Make every part of your body a slave that pleases God. 14 Don’t let sin keep ruling your lives. You are ruled by God’s kindness and not by the Law.
15 What does all this mean? Does it mean we are free to sin, because we are ruled by God’s wonderful kindness and not by the Law? Certainly not! 16 Don’t you know that you are slaves of anyone you obey? You can be slaves of sin and die, or you can be obedient slaves of God and be acceptable to him. 17 You used to be slaves of sin. But I thank God that with all your heart you obeyed the teaching you received from me. 18 Now you are set free from sin and are slaves who please God.
19 I am using these everyday examples, because in some ways you are still weak. You used to let the different parts of your body be slaves of your evil thoughts. But now you must make every part of your body serve God, so that you will belong completely to him.
20 When you were slaves of sin, you didn’t have to please God. 21 But what good did you receive from the things you did? All you have to show for them is your shame, and they lead to death. 22 Now you have been set free from sin, and you are God’s slaves. This will make you holy and will lead you to eternal life. 23 Sin pays off with death. But God’s gift is eternal life given by Jesus Christ our Lord.
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Matthew 10
40 Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me. And anyone who welcomes me also welcomes the one who sent me. 41 Anyone who welcomes a prophet, just because that person is a prophet, will be given the same reward as a prophet. Anyone who welcomes a good person, just because that person is good, will be given the same reward as a good person. 42 And anyone who gives one of my most humble followers a cup of cool water, just because that person is my follower, will surely be rewarded.
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Text version of the message for Hillside Circuit on July 2nd 2023 with Dr Christine Tenga:
I greet you all in Jesus’ name. Amen
The Service today is led by WA.
The Theme is: OBEDIENCE REVEALS THE GOD OF PROVISIONS.
Let’s pray
Our heavenly Father God Almighty we worship and praise you this morning. We give thanks for the gift of life and all the good things you have done for us.
We bring to you the church and everyone involved in it.
We pray for the sick, the less privileged and those who do not know you that they may find you one day.
We pray for the young people. May you provide the needs for each and every one according to their needs physically and spiritually.
Amen.
Our theme comes from the passage we read in Genesis. Abraham having obeyed God to go and sacrifice his only son at Mt. Morea, God provided a ram in place of Isaac his son. Then Abraham named that place, “God Provides” (Jehova Jireh)
Abraham was very obedient to God. This wasn’t the first time. He had obeyed and left his country and family when God told him to go to a land he didn’t know. And this time he took his only son for a sacrifice. Abraham trusted God through all experiences he had gone through with God. He got Isaac at a mature age. In his mind he must have been saying, God won’t harm my son. Let me obey and see. God wouldn’t ask him to do a pagan sacrifice of a human being. On their way on a 3 day journey, Isaac asked his father about the animal for sacrifice and Abraham responded by saying, “God himself will provide the lamb”. What trust! Can you obey someone you don’t trust? No. Isaac also was so obedient. He didn’t refuse to be tied to the altar to be sacrificed by his father. He was also very obedient. All this obedience led to God to provide a ram for sacrifice in place of Isaac. If we obey God, he will supply our needs. We need to trust him in difficult situations or circumstances. The hardship which Abraham went through must be a lesson to us to trust God. The journey was long; we may need to endure in our troubles too. Going through difficulties refines our character. You may need to give up what you love most to do God’s will. Imagine sacrificing your son. God places us in difficult circumstances to test us. Christians of today expect things to be smooth; no. Others quit along the tough way. God is always there to intervene to provide, although it may take time. We must stand firm in our commitment. God loves us to an extent of giving up his only Son to save us from sin. Christ became the sacrificial lamb. He stands for the provided ram at the altar. Christ became a substitute for us otherwise we were going to die of sin. We are saved from spiritual death and therfore we are spiritually alive through him. God provided for our eternal life. “For God so loved the world……” (John 3: 16).
In the Matthew passage, we learn that when we obey Christ, we are obeying God because God sent him. Likewise if we obey his disciples we are obeying him. We then receive their reward. If we receive even prophets and righteous man we receive their rewards because they are God’s servants. If we listen to them, we are listening to Christ and God.
Giving a thirsty child some water is a way God measures your love for him. You do not expect a reward from a child but you are willing to help. God rewards you for doing good to others.
In the Romans passage, there is a title: Dead to sin, Alive in Christ.
If you don’t do evil things then you are not a slave to sin. You do not obey evil. You obey God. You do not use your physical body to do sinful things. Sin leads to death but if you are righteous you become holy. Holiness leads to eternal life. We are under Christ not the law. Christ gives power to overcome sin. We must give ourselves wholeheartedly to God if we say we are obeying him.
Eternal life is a free gift from God we do not earn it. God gave his son. so that we can be saved and live in eternity with him. All we need to do is obey him. When we obey Christ, we see God and experience His Provisions.
God bless His Word.
Amen.
[Did you miss last week’s Sunday Services? They can now be found at Worship Archive – June 25th 2023.]
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Methodist Church: Hillside Circuit 
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