1-7-24 - Oakdale Covenant Service

Covenant & Communion

The covenant service, often celebrated on the first Sunday of the year, is at the heart of Methodists' devotion and discipleship, and their dedication in working for social justice.

In the service the Church joyfully celebrates God's gracious offer to Israel that "I will be their God and they shall be my people".

This offer is then extended beyond Israel to all people in Jesus Christ, who also provides the supreme example of what it is to live in such a relationship with God.

What God offers is a loving relationship.

The Covenant is not a contract in which God and human beings agree to provide particular goods and services for each other!

It is not something that we have to do to create a relationship with God.

God has freely and graciously already made it possible.

Instead,,, the Covenant is the means of grace by which we accept the relationship and then seek to sustain it.

It is therefore not so much about getting in to a relationship with God as it is about staying in it.

It is not about acquiring a relationship with God, but living within the loving relationship that God has already offered us.

God's gracious offer to us is therefore simultaneously a challenge.

If God is committed to us, are we prepared to accept that as reality and commit ourselves in return to God?

Even if we do choose to accept it, how can we manage to live out our commitment adequately,,, frail and human as we are?

We do this through the help of the Holy Spirit as He leads us throughout the following year and guides us to accomplish the goals that God has for us.

Join with me now as we begin this covenant service.

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Dearly beloved, the Christian life, to which we are called, is a life in Christ, redeemed from sin, and through Him consecrated to God. Upon this life we have entered, having been admitted into that New covenant of which our Lord Jesus Christ is mediator, and which he sealed with His own blood, that it might stand for ever.

On one side the Covenant is God’s promise that He will fulfill in and through us all that He declared in Christ Jesus, who is the author and Perfecter of our faith. That His promise still stands we are sure, for we have known His goodness, and proved His grace in our lives day by day. On the other side we stand pledged to live no more unto ourselves, but to Him who loved us and gave Himself for us, and has called us to serve Him that the purpose of His coming might be fulfilled.

From time to time, we renew our vows of consecration, especially when we gather at the Lord’s Table: but on this day we meet expressly, as generations of our fathers have met, that we may joyfully and solemnly renew the covenant which bound them and binds us to God.

Let us then, remembering the mercies of God, and the hope of His calling, examine ourselves by the light of His Spirit, that we may see wherein we have failed or fallen short in faith and practice, and, considering all that this Covenant means, may give ourselves anew to God.

Prayer of Adoration

Leader:

Let us worship our creator, the God of love; God continually preserves and sustains us; we have been loved with an everlasting love; through Jesus Christ we have been given complete knowledge of God’s glory.

People: You are God; we praise you; we acknowledge you to be the Lord.

Leader: Let us glory in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich, for our sakes he became poor; he was tempted in all points as we are, but he was without sin; he went about doing good and preaching the gospel of the kingdom;

he accepted death, death on the cross; he was dead and is alive forever; he has opened the kingdom of heaven to all who trust in him;

he sits in glory at the right hand of God; he will come again to be our Judge.

People: You, Christ, are the King of Glory.

Leader: Let us rejoice in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life. Through the Spirit we are born into the family of God, and made members of the body of Christ; the witness of the Spirit confirms us; the wisdom teaches us; the power enables us; the Spirit will do far more for us than we ask or think.

People: All praise to you, Holy Spirit.

Collect

Leader: Let us pray this prayer together:

People: Father, you have appointed our Lord Jesus Christ as Mediator of a new covenant; give us grace to draw near with fullness of faith and join ourselves in a perpetual covenant with you, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Covenant

Leader: In the old covenant, God chose Israel to be a special people and to obey the law. Our Lord Jesus Christ, by his death and resurrection, has made a new covenant with all who trust in him. We stand within this covenant and we bear his name. On the one side, God promises in this covenant to give us new life in Christ.

On the other side, we are pledged to live not for ourselves but for God. Today, therefore, we meet to renew the covenant which binds us to God.

(The people stand.)

Friends, let us claim the covenant God has made with his people, and accept the yoke of Christ. To accept the yoke of Christ means that we allow Christ to guide all that we do and are, and that Christ himself is our only reward. Christ has many services to be done; some are easy, others are difficult; some make others applaud us, others bring only reproach; some we desire to do because of our own interests; others seem unnatural. Sometimes we please Christ and meet our own needs, at other times we cannot please Christ unless we deny ourselves. Yet Christ strengthens us and gives us the power to do all these things. Therefore let us make this covenant of God our own. Let us give ourselves completely to God, trusting in his promises and relying on his grace.

People: I give myself completely to you, God. Assign me to my place in your creation. Let me suffer for you. Give me the work you would have me do. Give me many tasks or have me step aside while you call others. Put me forward or humble me. Give me riches or let me live in poverty. I freely give all that I am and all that I have to you. And now, holy God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it. May this covenant made on earth continue for all eternity. Amen.

Confession of Sin

Leader: Let us humbly confess our sins to God. O God, you have shown us the way of life through your Son, Jesus Christ. We confess with shame our slowness to learn of him, our failure to follow him, and our reluctance to bear the cross.

People: Have mercy on us, Lord, and forgive us.

Leader: We confess the poverty of our worship, our neglect of fellowship and of the means of grace, our hesitating witness for Christ, our evasion of responsibilities in our service, our imperfect stewardship of your gifts.

People: Have mercy on us, Lord, and forgive us.

Leader: Let each of us in silence make confession to God.

(Silence)

Leader: Have mercy on us, Lord, and forgive us.

People: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; In your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.

Leader: Now the message that we have heard from God’s Son and now announce is this: God is light, and there is no darkness at all in him. If we live in the light—just as he is in the light—then we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from every sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there is no truth in us. But if we confess our sins to God, he will keep his promise and do what is right; he will forgive us all our wrongdoing.

People: Amen. Thanks be to God.

___________________________________ The pastor stands behind the Lord's table. The Lord be with you. And also with you. Lift up your hearts. The pastor may lift hands and keep them raised. We lift them up to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give our thanks and praise. It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. Before the mountains were brought forth, or you had formed the earth, from everlasting to everlasting, you alone are God. You created light out of darkness and brought forth life on the earth. You formed us in your image and breathed into us the breath of life. When we turned away, and our love failed, your love remained steadfast. You delivered us from captivity, made covenant to be our sovereign God, and spoke to us through your prophets. And so, with your people on earth and all the company of heaven we praise your name and join their unending hymn: The pastor may lower hands. Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. The pastor may raise hands. Holy are you, and blessed is your Son Jesus Christ, in whom you have revealed yourself, our light and our salvation. In his baptism and in table fellowship he took his place with sinners. Your Spirit anointed him to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to announce that the time had come when you would save your people. By the baptism of his suffering, death, and resurrection you gave birth to your Church, delivered us from slavery to sin and death, and made with us a new covenant by water and the Spirit. The pastor may hold hands, palms down, over the bread, or touch the bread, or lift the bread. On the night in which he gave himself up for us, he took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said: "Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." The pastor may hold hands, palms down, over the cup, or touch the cup, or lift the cup. When the supper was over he took the cup, gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said: "Drink from this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." The pastor may raise hands. And so, in remembrance of these your mighty acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ's offering for us, as we proclaim the mystery of faith. Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again. The pastor may hold hands, palms down, over the bread and cup. Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood. The pastor may raise hands. By your Spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world, until Christ comes in final victory, and we feast at his heavenly banquet. Through your Son Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit in your holy Church, all honor and glory is yours, almighty Father, now and for ever. Amen.

Giving of the Bread and the Cup:

Prayer After Communion

Leader: Let us give thanks to the Lord.

People: Lord, we give thanks for the gift of this holy meal. We praise you that you sent your Son, that through him we might be reconciled completely to you. Christ sacrificed himself for us; grant that all we are and all we do be a response to him, in whose strong name we pray. Amen.

Hymn:

Dismissal with Blessing

Leader: May the God who established a covenant with those who seek to enter the kingdom be always present with you.

People: Amen.

Leader: May Jesus Christ who sealed the new covenant with his sacrifice on the cross bring you peace.

People: Amen.

Leader: May the Holy Spirit of God guide your life, now and for ever.

People: Amen.

Leader: Go in peace to serve God and your neighbor in all that you do.

People: Amen. Thanks be to God!