The Blessedness of Suffering

The Blessedness of Suffering

Mill Plain UMC
Sunday, May 14, 2023,
The Blessedness of Suffering
Scripture
I Peter 3:13-22

Songs
Forever
Hosanna
Not for a moment
Lord Listen to Your children
How Great is Our God
Bigger Table
Step by Step

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Mill Plain UMC

May 14,2023

9:30 a.m.

Prelude Forever                                            

Greeting

Scholarship Moment

Call to Worship

Worship Assistant: Bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of God’s praise be heard.

People: Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth!

Worship Assistant:  God has kept us among the living, and has not let our feet slip.

People:  Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth!

Opening Prayer

In you, O God, every family on earth receives its name.  Illumine the homes of this earth with the light of your love, granting courage to those who are hurt or lonely, endurance to those who care for sick family members, and wisdom to those in fearful times of change.

We thank you for gifts of love we have received from mother, father, spouse, child or companion.  As we have been loved by you and by others, so may we love.  Grant us your peace, through Jesus te Christ.  Amen.

(Reprinted from The United Methodist Book of Worship, copyright 1992, by permission of The United Methodist Publishing House.)

Praise songs

Hosanna

Not for a moment

Young Disciples Moment

Anthem  

Silent Prayer

Pastoral Prayer

Lord’s Prayer

Offertory Lord Listen to your children       

Presentation of Offerings

Doxology How great is our God                 

Scripture

I Peter 3:13-22

Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you;

yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil.

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.

And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

Hymn Be Still, My Soul #534

Sermon The Blessedness of Suffering      

Prayer O Healer of Galilee, you are afflicted in the sufferings of your people and are full of compassion and tender mercy.  Hear us as we pray for those who suffer:

For all who suffer trauma in body or mind . . .

For those whose livelihood is insecure, the overworked, the hungry, the homeless, and the destitute, for those who have been downtrodden, ruined, and driven to despair . . .

For little children whose surroundings hide them from your love and beauty, for the fatherless and motherless . . .

For those who have to bear their burdens alone, and for all who have lost those whom they love . . .

For those who are in doubt and anguish of soul, for those who are oversensitive and afraid . . .

For those who suffer through their own wrongdoing . . .

For those whose suffering is unrelieved by the knowledge of your love . . .

Set free, Helper of the weak, the souls of your servants from all restlessness and anxiety.

Give us the peace and power that flow from you.  Keep us in all perplexities and distressses, in all griefs and grievances, from any fear or faithlessness; that, being upheld by your strength and stayed on the rock of your faithfulness, through storm and stress we may abide in you.  Amen.

(Reprinted from The United Methodist Book of Worship, copyright 1992, by permission of The United Methodist Publishing House.)

Praise song Bigger Table

Benediction

Before us it is blessed, behind us it is blessed, below us it is blessed, above us it is blessed, around us it is blessed as we set out with Christ.

Our speech is blessed as we set out for God.

With beauty before us, with beauty behind us, with beauty below us, with beauty above us, with beauty around us, we set out for a holy place indeed.  Amen.

(Traditional Native American Prayer, reprinted from The United Methodist Book of Worship, by permission of The United Methodist Publishing House, copyright 1992.)

Postlude Step by step