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The Advent-ure Of Peace

Worship
Zephaniah 3:14-20
Philippians 4:4-7
Luke 3:7-18
Third Sunday of Advent - C
Dallas A. Brauninger
Lectionary Worship Aids
Series V, Cycle C
First Lesson: Zephaniah 3:14-20
Theme: The Advent-ure Of Peace

Call To Worship
Leader: All of us meet troublesome relationships.

People: We come yearning for solutions.

Leader: We know about arguing with ourselves and disagreeing with others.

People: We come wanting to resolve and settle.

All: Come, Christ, we await your peace.

Collect

Peace-giving God, who promises to lead us toward agreement and who calls us home to our true selves, renew within us a sense of your enduring peace. Amen.

Prayer Of Confession

God who removes disaster from us, God who turns away enemies of fear and turmoil, God who rejoices over us with gladness, renew us with the lasting peace of your love. In the name of Christ. Amen.

03C Hymns
"[O][Oh] Come, O Come, Emmanuel" Tune: VENI EMMANUEL

"My Heart Sings Out With Joyful Praise" Tune: MARIAS LOVS NG

"People In Darkness Are Looking For Light" (vv. 1-3) Tune: ADVENT1

* * *

Second Lesson: Philippians 4:4-7
Theme: Amazing Peace

Call To Worship

Rejoice in God for God is near. Let us rejoice in God by unfolding our souls. Let us rejoice by sharing ourselves with God and with those around us. And we will know a peace that we had not expected. Come, let us worship God.

Collect

We come to you, O God, with hearts thankful for your generous
spirit. Hear our songs and prayers of thanksgiving because you are near to show us the way of peace. Amen.

Prayer Of Confession

Dear God, we want to move beyond protecting our gentleness so much that we become closed in upon ourselves. We equate gentleness with exposing our vulnerability. We forget that tenderness also uncovers strength. Help us to glimpse the peace that can come from compassion. In Jesus' name. Amen.

03C Hymns
"Mary And Joseph In Bethlehem Town" Tune: SABRA

"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" Tune: MENDELSSOHN

"Gentle Mary Laid Her Child" Tune: TEMPUS ADEST FLORIDUM

* * *


Gospel: Luke 3:7-18
Theme: God Is Able

Call To Worship
Leader: God is able,

People: And so are we.

Leader: God is able to do what seems impossible.

People: We are able to bear amazing fruit from our resources.

Leader: Come, let us worship our able, empowering God.

Collect

God, who offers us a reason to change our ways and who invites us to discover that we, too, are able to be kind, to share, and to choose fair ways, to you we return thanks. Amen.

Prayer Of Confession

When we live out the faith of our baptism, O God, we begin to understand our responsibility for how we live. Strengthen our resolve to act beyond self-interest. Open our ears to hear that we are able to live as you would have us live. In the name of the coming Savior. Amen.

03C Hymns
"Awake! Awake, And Greet The New Morn" Tune: REJOICE, REJOICE

"[On River Jordan's Bank][On Jordan's Bank][The Baptist Shouts][On Jordan's Shore]" Tune: WINCHESTER NEW

"Healing River Of The Spirit" Tune: JOEL or BEACH SPRING

____________

1. Sing verses 1, 2, and 3 of this Advent Hymn on Advent 3. Sing verse 3 as a closing response after the benediction.
UPCOMING WEEKS
In addition to the lectionary resources there are thousands of non-lectionary, scripture based resources...
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31 – Children's Sermons / Resources
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SermonStudio

Mariann Edgar Budde
And he said to me, "You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified." But I said, "I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my cause is with the Lord, and my reward with my God." And now the Lord says, who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, and that Israel might be gathered to him ...
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COMMENTARY ON THE LESSONS

Lesson 1: Isaiah 49:1-7 (C, E); Isaiah 49:3, 5-6 (RC)
Paul E. Robinson
A man by the name of Kevin Trudeau has marketed a memory course called "Mega-Memory." In the beginning of the course he quizzes the participants about their "teachability quotient." He says it consists of two parts. First, on a scale of one to ten "where would you put your motivation to learn?" Most people would put themselves pretty high, say about nine to ten, he says.
Charles L. Aaron, Jr.
The first chapter of John bears some similarity to the pilot episode of a television series. In that first episode, the writers and director want to introduce all of the main characters. In a television series, what we learn about the main characters in the first episode helps us understand them for the rest of the time the show is on the air and to see how they develop over the course of the series. John's narrative begins after the prologue, a hymn or poem that sets John's theological agenda. Once the narrative begins in verse 19, John focuses on identifying the characters of his gospel.
Dallas A. Brauninger
E-mail
From: KDM
To: God
Subject: Enriched
Message: I could never be a saint, God. Lauds, KDM

The e-mail chats KDM has with God are talks that you or I might likely have with God. Today's e-mail is no exception: I could never be a saint, God. Lauds, KDM. The conversation might continue in the following vein: Just so you know, God, I am very human. Enriched, yes; educated, yes; goal-oriented, yes; high-minded, yes; perfect, no.
Robert A. Beringer
Charles Swindoll in his popular book, Improving Your Serve, tells of how he was at first haunted and then convicted by the Bible's insistence that Jesus came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45)." The more he studied what the Bible says about servanthood, the more convinced Swindoll became that our task in this world, like that of Jesus, is not to be served, not to grab the spotlight, and not to become successful or famous or powerful or idolized.
Wayne H. Keller
Adoration And Praise

Invitation to the Celebration

(In advance, ask five or six people if you can use their names in the call to worship.) Remember the tobacco radio ad, "Call for Phillip Morris!"? Piggyback on this idea from the balcony, rear of the sanctuary, or on a megaphone. "Call for (name each person)." After finishing, offer one minute of silence, after asking, "How many of you received God's call as obviously as that?" (Show of hands.) Now, silently, consider how you did receive God's call. Was it somewhere between the call of Peter and Paul?
B. David Hostetter
CALL TO WORSHIP
Do not keep the goodness of God hidden in your heart: proclaim God's faithfulness and saving power.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Emphasis Preaching Journal

William H. Shepherd
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One of my favorite British situation comedies is Keeping Up Appearances. It chronicles the attempts of Hyacinth Bucket, pronounced "bouquet" on the show, to appear to have entered the British upper class by maintaining the manners and mores of that social set. The nearby presence of her sisters, Daisy and Rose, serve as a constant reminder that she has not gotten far from her origins in anything but the upper class.

At first I was quite put off by the show's title with an instant dislike for Hyacinth, and a

CSSPlus

Good morning, boys and girls. Do you remember a few weeks ago when we were talking about the meaning of names? (let them answer) Some names mean "beautiful" or "bright as the morning sun." Almost every name has a special meaning.

Good morning! What do I have here? (Show the stuffed animal
or the picture.) Yes, this is a lamb, and the lamb has a very
special meaning to Christians. Who is often called a lamb in the
Bible? (Let them answer.)

Once, when John the Baptist was baptizing people in the
river, he saw Jesus walking toward him and he said, "Here is the
Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" Why do you
think he would call Jesus a lamb? (Let them answer.)

To understand why Jesus is called a lamb, we have to go back
Good morning! How many of you are really rich? How many of
you have all the money you could ever want so that you can buy
anything you want? (Let them answer.) I didn't think so. If any
of you were that rich, I was hoping you would consider giving a
generous gift to the church.

Let's just pretend we are rich for a moment. Let's say this
toy car is real and it's worth $50,000. And let's say this toy
boat is real and it's worth $100,000, and this toy airplane is a

Special Occasion

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