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Blacknall Worship from Home
February 21, 2021

Invocation

Our heavenly Father, as we gather this morning on this first Sunday in Lent, we can see in the distance a cross on a high hill, and we are reminded that you have come, to seek and to save, not simply to clear our criminal record, but to adopt us into your family, to bring us home. Inspire us this morning by the power of your Holy Spirit to lift our voices in renewed appreciation and grateful praise. Our Redeemer has come. Prepare us to meet him. Amen

Song | God With Us

Oh You've come to bring peace to be Love
To be nearer to us
And You've come to bring life to be Light
To shine brighter in us
Oh Emmanuel God with us

Our Deliverer You are Savior
In Your presence we find our strength
Over ev'rything our Redemption
God with us
You are God with us

Oh You've come to be Hope to this world
For Your honor and name
And You've come to take sin to bear shame
And to conquer the grave
Oh Emmanuel, oh God with us

You are here
You are holy
We are standing in Your glory (Lord)
(REPEAT)

You are God with us
You are God with us

Scripture Reading | Isaiah 40:1-8

   Comfort, comfort my people,
    says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
    and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
    that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
    double for all her sins.

3 A voice of one calling:
“In the wilderness prepare
    the way for the Lord;
make straight in the desert
    a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be raised up,
    every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
    the rugged places a plain.
5 And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
    and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

6 A voice says, “Cry out.”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”

“All people are like grass,
    and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
7 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
    because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
    Surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
    but the word of our God endures forever.”

Song | Prepare Ye the Way

The Word of the Lord came one evening
Concerning His bride's great sin
He'd send down His Word to renew her
To prepare for the Bridegroom again

The Word said repent
From seeking vain glories
While the gifts in the Lord's name you give
Repent of all the first stones cast to kill
While your own self-righteousness lives

Prepare ye the way for the Lord!
Prepare ye the way for the kingdom!
Prepare ye the way,
prepare ye the way for the Lord

The Word said repent and turn from your strivings
Repent and turn from your hatred
Repent from the doctrines of men that divide
And tear like the wedding gown rent

Walk in His love like newborn children
Walk in His love, let the wedding gown mend
Walk in His love, with humility

come with pure hearts
And cast all your cares to the wind

Prepare ye the way!
Prepare ye the way!
Prepare ye the way,
Prepare ye the way for the Lord

Call to Confession

My mom used to knit me sweaters. Me being me, I took for granted her skill and perseverance, and the particular gift of time and love that she knitted and purled into each garment. Having received her gift of craftsmanship and long labor, I would then pass judgment on her work, whether it suited my own vision of myself, a vision that was too often only a reflection of the presumed approval of my peers. I could not see the gift for what it was, a personal sacrifice of love and beauty, that would also serve a very practical need.

So it is with the gift we have been given in Jesus Christ. Too influenced by our surroundings, too blind to our real need, too unskilled to appreciate what is on offer in the gospel, we content ourselves with the uneasy contract we have negotiated with our fallen world. Even our desires are untrustworthy; we don’t even know what we ought to want. How shall we find our way?

Let us kneel, and turn to the One who made us, who loves us, and in that prodigious love will receive us with joy. Let us confess our sin.

Prayer of Confession

God of mercy, you sent Jesus Christ to seek and save the lost. We confess that we are those lost ones for whom you came. We have lost sight of our need of a Savior, and so have strayed from you and turned aside from your way. Help us, gracious Lord, to see our need afresh, and to see with increasing gratitude the depth of your provision. Help us not only to confess, but to repent, and then to renounce those habits of act, word, thought, and imagination that are not from you. Don’t let go of us, Lord; we are more desperate than we know. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Assurance of Pardon

Beloved, this is true: in Jesus Christ, we are forgiven!

Passing the Peace

May the peace of the Lord be with you.

Response: And also with you

Affirmation of Faith | Apostles Creed

We believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. We believe in the Holy Spirit; the holy catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.

Children’s Blessing

With Leslie Petree.

Children’s Worship

If you would like to receive the Children’s Worship video email, please contact Beth Solie.

Proclamation of the Word | Pastor Goodie Bell

Mark 1.1-13
The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, 2 as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:

“I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way”—
3 “a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”

4 And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. 6 John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

12 At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, 13 and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

Song of Response | Thou Who Wast Rich

Thou who was rich beyond all splendor,
All for love's sake becamest poor;
Thrones for a manger did surrender,
Sapphire-paved courts for stable floor.
Thou who was rich beyond all splendor,
All for love's sake becamest poor.

Thou who art God beyond all praising,
All for love's sake becamest man;
Stooping so low, but sinners raising
Heavenwards by thine eternal plan.
Thou who art God beyond all praising,
All for love's sake becamest man.

Thou who art love beyond all telling,
Savior and King, we worship thee.
Emmanuel, within us dwelling,
Make us what thou would have us be.
Thou who art love beyond all telling,
Savior and King, we worship thee.

Presenting Our Gifts | Online Giving

You are invited to respond to God’s Word by giving to the mission God has called us to at Blacknall.

Prayers of Thanksgiving & Intercession

Would you like to share a prayer request? Submit your request here.

(As you pray the following petitions, you are encouraged to pause and lift to the Lord particular concerns or people or events. Read prayer requests from Blacknall members and ministry partners here.)

Lord, you have told us that are always ready to hear us when we pray. You have instructed us to pray and not give up, even when we do not understand your ways with this world and your people. In obedience and trust, then, we lift our petitions to you.

We pray for your church, both Blacknall and your people wherever they might gather today, for its unity and strength, that it might reflect a growing faithfulness to her Lord;

We pray for all who are suffering, who are overwhelmed, who are afflicted in body, or mind, or spirit, especially..............., that you might hear, and in your mercy, heal. We pray for an end to this pandemic, and we thank you for the hopeful signs of decreasing rate of this disease.

We pray for comfort for those who are grieving. Especially we lift to you Tana O’Keeffe in the loss of her sister, for Brenda Boardman and Anne Paulson, in the loss of their mothers, for Dan Kronstad and Mark Atkinson, in the loss of their fathers, and for Denise Hoganson, in the loss of her brother-in-law. We also pray your Holy Spirit’s presence and comfort for …....................

We pray for those who do not yet know the Savior, who have not yet received the good news of Jesus Christ, and for those who have become indifferent to your love for them, or who actively persecute your Name.............

We pray for those in authority, whether the heads of nations and countries, or in leadership roles in work or society. May they exercise their authority in the certain knowledge that it is a gift from you, and may they do so in service to you and your restoring love for your creation.

Thank you Lord, for hearing our prayer. We ask that you would finish your new creation, so that the whole world may be made new. We pray in the name of the One who taught us to pray…

Our Father...

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 debts, as we forgive our debtors;
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever.
Amen.

Benediction

Song | Lord Who Throughout These 40 Days

Lord, who throughout these forty days
For us did fast and pray,
Teach us to overcome our sins,
And close by You to stay.

As You with Satan did contend
And did the vict'ry win,
O give us strength in You to fight,
In You to conquer sin.

As You did hunger and did thirst,
So teach us, gracious Lord,
To die to self, and only live
By Your most holy word.

Text by Claudia Frances Hernaman (1873). Tune: St. Flavian (1562). Public Domain.