Prelude – Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah
Greeting and Welcome
Lighting of the Candles
Hymn of Invocation – Holy, Holy, Holy (LSB 507)
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!
Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see,
Only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in pow’r, in love, and purity.
+ Preparation +
Invocation
P: In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
C: Amen.
Confession and Absolution
P: Lord God, You promise grace and every blessing to all who come before You and repent of their sins. Hear us now as we, Your humble children, bring our prayers before You.
In silent prayer, we confess our sins to the Lord, seeking His cleansing forgiveness.
P: Most merciful Father,
C: we come before You and admit our sinfulness. In our thoughts, words, and actions, we have failed to do what Your Word demands. We have not honored You fully with our lives, nor have we loved one another as You have first loved us. In the name of our loving Savior Jesus Christ, we ask for Your forgiveness. Because our Savior humbled Himself for our sake upon the cross, enable us in true humility to receive the remission You promise to Your repentant children. Amen.
P: “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” God the Father has taken your sins and laid them upon our humble Savior Jesus Christ. Because of Christ’s sacrifice, God does not count your sins against you. He has taken them away! He remembers them no more! He preserves and delivers you as His child forever! As a called and ordained servant of Christ and by His authority, I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
C: Amen.
+ Word +
First Reading – Deuteronomy 7:1-11
“When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire.
“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today.
P: This is the Word of the Lord.
C: Thanks be to God.
Epistle – Romans 13:1-10
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
P: This is the Word of the Lord.
C: Thanks be to God.
Holy Gospel – Matthew 18:1-20
P: The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the eighteenth chapter.
C: Glory to You, O Lord.
At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
“Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
“Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.
“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
P: This is the Gospel of the Lord.
C: Praise to You, O Christ.
Children’s Song – Lord, Be Glorified (AGPS 165)
In my life Lord, be glorified, be glorified.
In my life Lord, be glorified today.
In my song Lord, be glorified, be glorified,
In my song Lord, be glorified today.
Children’s Message
Hymn of the Day – God Has Spoken by His Prophets (LSB 583)
God has spoken by His prophets,
Spoken His unchanging Word;
Each from age to age proclaiming
God, the one, the righteous Lord.
In the world’s despair and turmoil,
One firm anchor holds us fast:
God is king, His throne eternal;
God the first, and God the last.
God has spoken by Christ Jesus,
Christ, the everlasting Son,
Brightness of the Father’s glory,
With the Father ever one;
Spoken by the Word Incarnate,
God of God, before time was;
Light of Light, to earth descending,
He reveals our God to us.
Sermon
