Worship Notes for Pentecost 11, 2015

Thursday after Pentecost 10

August 6, 2015

The Lord be with you.

This coming Sunday is Pentecost 11. It is the Sunday selected at our last District Convention for our congregations to remember our cities in our prayers. At Lamb of God we gratefully join the district in this God pleasing event, which we are calling “Sunday for the City.” In our prayers we will be using a special litany which the district prepared, based on Philippians 4:4-8. It will be printed on an insert.

Following our regular rotation, we will celebrate the Lord’s Supper Sunday. For our liturgy we will use the third setting of the Divine Service (page 184). The appointed lessons are 1 Kings 19:1-8, Ephesians 4:17-5:2 and John 6:35-51. The sermon is based on the reading from Ephesians. The text is Ephesians 5:2. The sermon is titled “Walk in Love.”

Our opening hymn will be “I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light” (LSB 711). Our sermon hymn will be “Oh, That the Lord Would Guide My Ways” (LSB 707). Our closing hymn will be “Spread the Reign of God the Lord” (LSB 830). Our distribution hymns will be “Thine the Amen, Thine the Praise” (LSB 680) and “Let Us Ever Walk with Jesus” (LSB 685).

Our adult Bible class has just begun a new study, Word: God Speaks to Us. The author is John T. Pless and it is part of the Lutheran Spirituality series published by Concordia Publishing House. This is an excellent series. There are extra study guides available.  

Below is a video of “the Lutheran Warbler” playing and singing our sermon hymn, “Oh, That the Lord Would Guide My Ways.”  

What follows is a synopsis of Sunday’s lessons, provided by the synod, then the lessons and finally some additional notes.

There are a few notes, following the readings, of interest.

The Lord Jesus Feeds Us with His Flesh, in Order to Strengthen Us with His Own Life

God the Father sent His Son into the world, so that the world might have life in Him. Now He “draws” you to His Son, Christ Jesus, by the preaching of His Gospel. “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father” comes to Jesus, who will never cast him out but “will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:44–45). He is “the bread of life,” who “comes down from heaven” in the flesh, that you may eat of Him and “live forever” (John 6:48–51). Although “the journey is too great for you,” in the strength of this food you shall come to “the mount of God.” Do not be afraid, and do not despair, but “arise and eat” (1 Kings 19:5–8). And “no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds” (Eph. 4:17), but “walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Eph. 5:2). In Him, you have been “created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:24). Therefore, “be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Eph. 5:1), by “forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:32).

1 Kings 19:1-8

^19:1        Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. ²Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” ³Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.

⁴           But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” ⁵And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.” ⁶And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again. ⁷And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.” ⁸And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.

Ephesians 4:17-5:2

^4:17        Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. ¹⁸They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. ¹⁹They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. ²⁰But that is not the way you learned Christ!—²¹assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, ²²to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, ²³and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, ²⁴and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

²⁵          Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. ²⁶Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, ²⁷and give no opportunity to the devil. ²⁸Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. ²⁹Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. ³⁰And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. ³¹Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. ³²Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

^5:1         Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. ²And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

John 6:35-51

^6:35        Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. ³⁶But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. ³⁷All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. ³⁸For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. ³⁹And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. ⁴⁰For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

⁴¹          So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” ⁴²They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” ⁴³Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. ⁴⁴No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. ⁴⁵It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—⁴⁶not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. ⁴⁷Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. ⁴⁸I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. ⁵⁰This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. ⁵¹I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

Some Additional Notes

• This is the final Sunday to bring in school supplies to donate to Jesse Boyd Elementary. They will be taken to Jesse Boyd on Monday, August 10.

• The Voters’ Meeting that was scheduled for July 19 has been rescheduled for Sunday, August 16.

• Keep Praying for your Neighbors and Walking your Neighborhoods.

• Don’t forget to check out the other posts on our blog that have been made this past week. Many of these posts are from district, synod or one of the groups affiliated with us (like a seminary). For example, you can find a response from the LC-MS to the BSA decision to allow actively homosexual leaders for their Boy Scout troops.

• Women’s Bible Fellowship will meet Wednesday, August 12.

Blessings in Christ,

Pastor Rickert