Sunday Service from Hillside Circuit for March 30th 2025:
Lectionary Theme: Renewed in Christ Jesus
Occasion: 4th Sunday in Lent
Lectionary readings:
Psalm 32
Joshua 5: 1-12
2 Corinthians 5: 16-21
Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32
[Click or tap on a Bible reference above to jump down the page to the Bible reading to read it for yourself (and/or to listen to it) 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.
Praise the Lord, Ye heavens adore him.
I want to walk with Jesus Christ.
Lord I come to you.
Purify my heart.
Beloved and Blessed.
Come thou fount of every blessing.
Just as I am without one plea.
And can it be.
May the Lord.
Prayers of Intercession:
You can also 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:
Bible readings:
Psalm 32
1 Our God, you bless everyone
whose sins you forgive and wipe away.
2 You bless them by saying,
“You told me your sins, without trying to hide them,
and now I forgive you.”
3 Before I confessed my sins, my bones felt limp,
and I groaned all day long.
4 Night and day your hand weighed heavily on me,
and my strength was gone as in the summer heat.
5 So I confessed my sins and told them all to you.
I said, “I’ll tell the LORD each one of my sins.”
Then you forgave me and took away my guilt.
6 We worship you, LORD, and we should always pray
whenever we find out that we have sinned.
Then we won’t be swept away by a raging flood.
7 You are my hiding place! You protect me from trouble,
and you put songs in my heart
because you have saved me.
8 You said to me, “I will point out the road
that you should follow.
I will be your teacher and watch over you.
9 Don’t be stupid like horses and mules
that must be led with ropes to make them obey.”
10 All kinds of troubles will strike the wicked,
but your kindness shields those who trust you, LORD.
11 And so your good people should celebrate and shout.
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Joshua 5
1 The Amorite kings west of the Jordan River and the Canaanite kings along the Mediterranean Sea lost their courage and their will to fight, when they heard how the LORD had dried up the Jordan River to let Israel go across.
2 While Israel was camped at Gilgal, the LORD said, “Joshua, make some flint knives and circumcise the rest of the Israelite men and boys.”
3 Joshua made the knives, then circumcised those men and boys at Haaraloth Hill.
4-7 This had to be done, because none of Israel’s baby boys had been circumcised during the forty years that Israel had wandered through the desert after leaving Egypt.
And why had they wandered for forty years? It was because right after they left Egypt, the men in the army had disobeyed the LORD. And the LORD had said, “None of you men will ever live to see the land that I promised Israel. It is a land rich with milk and honey, and someday your children will live there, but not before you die here in the desert.”
8 Everyone who had been circumcised needed time to heal, and they stayed in camp.
9 The LORD told Joshua, “It was a disgrace for my people to be slaves in Egypt, but now I have taken away that disgrace.” So the Israelites named the place Gilgal, and it still has that name.
10 Israel continued to camp at Gilgal in the desert near Jericho, and on the fourteenth day of the same month, they celebrated Passover.
11-12 The next day, God stopped sending the Israelites manna to eat each morning, and they started eating food grown in the land of Canaan. They ate roasted grain and thin bread made of the barley they had gathered from nearby fields.
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2 Corinthians 5
16 We are careful not to judge people by what they seem to be, though we once judged Christ in that way. 17 Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten, and everything is new. 18 God has done it all! He sent Christ to make peace between himself and us, and he has given us the work of making peace between himself and others.
19 What we mean is that God was in Christ, offering peace and forgiveness to the people of this world. And he has given us the work of sharing his message about peace. 20 We were sent to speak for Christ, and God is begging you to listen to our message. We speak for Christ and sincerely ask you to make peace with God. 21 Christ never sinned! But God treated him as a sinner, so that Christ could make us acceptable to God.
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Luke 15
1 Tax collectors and sinners were all crowding around to listen to Jesus. 2 So the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law of Moses started grumbling, “This man is friendly with sinners. He even eats with them.”
3 Then Jesus told them this story:
11b Once a man had two sons. 12 The younger son said to his father, “Give me my share of the property.” So the father divided his property between his two sons.
13 Not long after that, the younger son packed up everything he owned and left for a foreign country, where he wasted all his money in wild living. 14 He had spent everything, when a bad famine spread through that whole land. Soon he had nothing to eat.
15 He went to work for a man in that country, and the man sent him out to take care of his pigs. 16 He would have been glad to eat what the pigs were eating, but no one gave him a thing.
17 Finally, he came to his senses and said, “My father’s workers have plenty to eat, and here I am, starving to death! 18 I will go to my father and say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against God in heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer good enough to be called your son. Treat me like one of your workers.’ “
20 The younger son got up and started back to his father. But when he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt sorry for him. He ran to his son and hugged and kissed him.
21 The son said, “Father, I have sinned against God in heaven and against you. I am no longer good enough to be called your son.”
22 But his father said to the servants, “Hurry and bring the best clothes and put them on him. Give him a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. 23 Get the best calf and prepare it, so we can eat and celebrate. 24 This son of mine was dead, but has now come back to life. He was lost and has now been found.” And they began to celebrate.
25 The older son had been out in the field. But when he came near the house, he heard the music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants over and asked, “What’s going on here?”
27 The servant answered, “Your brother has come home safe and sound, and your father ordered us to kill the best calf.” 28 The older brother got so angry that he would not even go into the house.
His father came out and begged him to go in. 29 But he said to his father, “For years I have worked for you like a slave and have always obeyed you. But you have never even given me a little goat, so that I could give a dinner for my friends. 30 This other son of yours wasted your money on prostitutes. And now that he has come home, you ordered the best calf to be killed for a feast.”
31 His father replied, “My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we should be glad and celebrate! Your brother was dead, but he is now alive. He was lost and has now been found.”
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[Did you miss last week’s Sunday Services? They can now be found at Worship Archive – March 23rd 2025.]
Methodist Church: Hillside Circuit 
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