Trinity Season October 1, 2017

The Covenant Renewal Service

Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church

9124 Sappington Road, St. Louis, MO 63126 314-843-7994 www.providencestlouis.com

WelcomeIf you are visiting our church today, we welcome you to our worship service and Christian community. Please find the registration book in the foyer of the church and help us serve you better by leaving your name and contact information. We promise to keep this information confidential and only use it for personal contact with you and your family.

Sunday school meets shortly after the morning service. Please see the announcements below for more information. Our Evening Prayer Service will meet at 6 PM tonight.

If you are unfamiliar with our form of worship, please feel free to speak with one of the Pastors or Elders. We have resources that will help you understand the biblical rationale for why we worship the way we do. Visit our website for articles, essays, and other helpful information on our worship and life at Providence: www.providencestlouis.com.

The Lord’s Supper is observed every Sunday as the climax of covenant renewal worship. We invite to the Lord’s Table all those who are baptized disciples of Jesus Christ, under the authority of Christ and his body, the Church. By eating the bread and wine with us as a visitor, you are acknowledging to the elders of this local church that you are in covenant with God as an active member of a congregation in which the Gospel is faithfully confessed, taught, and believed. If you have any doubt about your participation, please speak to one of the elders or the pastor before or after the service. Note: The middle circle of cups in each tray contains grape juice, the larger outer ring contains wine (the grape juice has a darker color than the wine).

The Chi-Rho is the oldest known monogram of Jesus Christ. It is sometimes known as a “Christogram”. The chi and the rho are the first two letters of the word Christ (Christos) in the Greek language. The chi (X) = ch and the rho (P) = r. The Greek word christos translates the Hebrew word for “Messiah,” which means “anointed one.” Jesus was born to be the promised anointed Priest and King.

This is Trinity Season, so the color of the Table cloth and pulpit scarf is green, symbolizing life, growth, and the maturation of Jesus kingdom.

The Chi Rho (Front Cover)

The Morning Service

The Lord’s Day — October 1, 2017Trinity Season

Preparation For Worship: Psalm 150Organ - Mr. Bill Hoover

Welcome & Announcements - Pastor Jeff Meyers

The EntrancePrelude Mr. Bill Hoover, organWelcome & Announcements Pastor Jeff Meyers[Kneeling] Silent Preparation for Worship: Habakkuk 2:20Call to Worship: Deuteronomy 31:12-13

Assemble the people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and learn to fear Yahweh your God, and be careful to do all the words of this instruction, and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God.

Pastor: Let us rise and worship God, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Congregation: Amen! Matthew 28:19 †Hymn #13 “O worship the King” Trinity Hymnal †Salutation & Responsive Scripture

The Lord be with you! Ruth 2:4And also with you!

Our help is in the Name of Yahweh! Psalm 124:8Who made heaven and earth!

†Pastor: Let us pray to the Lord:O God, you are infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, glorious in holiness, full of love and compassion, abundant in grace and truth. All your works praise you in all places of your dominion, and your glory is revealed in Jesus Christ your Son; therefore, we praise you Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, blessed forever. Amen!

PurificationPastor: Beloved in the Lord! Let us draw near with a true heart, and confess our sins unto God our Father, asking him, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to grant us forgiveness.

Come let us worship and bow down, Psalm 95:6And kneel before the Lord our Maker [Congregation kneels]

Let us, therefore, humbly confess our sins to God our Father:Gracious Lord, you require us to do justice, but we withhold the honor and love we owe to others. You require us to love mercy and kindness, but we repay evil with evil and love to take revenge. You require us to walk humbly with our God, but we walk away from you in pride, on a path that leads to sin and misery. Gracious Lord, we cry out to you for mercy. In your kindness, forgive us all of our sins. Renew us by the power of your Spirit so that we may always walk humbly with you in the way of mercy and justice. Amen. from Micah 6:8, Micah 7:18-19

†Pastor: Now lift up your heads, arise and hear the good news. . . !The Rite of Christian Baptism Anna Rivers Harlow

Scripture Reading Pastor Jeff MeyersParental Vows: Drew & Ashley Maney

Do you acknowledge your child’s need of the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ, and the renewing grace of the Holy Spirit?Do you claim God’s covenant promises on her behalf, and do you look in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ for her salvation, as you do for your own?Do you now present this child to be baptized into the Christian Faith, and promise, in humble reliance upon divine grace, that you will endeavor to set before her a godly example, that you will pray with her and for her, that you will teach her the doctrines of our holy faith, and that you will strive, by all means of God’s appointment, to bring her up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?

Congregational VowsDo you, members of this congregation and also members of the Body of Christ outside of this local church, undertake this responsibility of assisting the parents in the Christian nurture of this child?

Address to the Child (from the French Reformed Liturgy)Christian Baptism: Lenka Hope Maney Prayer: Elder Robert MurphyWe Renew our Baptismal Covenant: The Lorica

Ascension The Hebrew Scriptures: 2 Samuel 9:1-13

This is the Word of the Lord!Thanks be to God!

The Scripture Reading: Acts 24:1-23 This is the Word of the Lord!

Thanks be to God!†The Gospel Reading: John 21:24-31

This is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ!Praise be to you, O Christ!

†The Gloria PatriGlory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, Amen.

Sermon Text: 2 Timothy 1:1-7 Pastor Jeff MeyersSermon: THE POWERFUL PERSONALISM OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

I. AN EXPOSITION OF PAUL’S SECOND LETTER TO TIMOTHY

The Tribute Offering†We Offer Ourselves Through Tithes and Offerings Offertory:  "Come, we that love the Lord" (hymn #588, verses 1, 3, 2)   

Tune: ALBION, arr. Alice Parker †[Hands Raised] The Doxology Trinity Hymnal, p. xvi†Offertory Prayer of Dedication

Congregation: Amen! †The Lord’s Prayer

The Sacrifice of PeacePrayer of Thanksgiving & the Bread of Life Communion Hymn: #355 “Lord Jesus Christ” Trinity HymnalPrayer of Thanksgiving & the Wine of GladnessPastoral Benediction: “Now may the body and blood of our Lord. . .”†The Song of Simeon (Nunc Dimittis): Luke 2:30-32

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy Word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou has prepared before the face of all people; A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

†Pastor: Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.Congregation: And his mercy endures forever!

Pastoral Prayer: Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, by the powerful resurrection of your Son, you overcame the old order of sin and death to make all things new in him. Give us joy to celebrate Christ’s rising from the dead, and a firm hope that we will be raised from the death of sin to the life of righteousness;

through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, age after age. Congregation: Amen!

Benediction† Hymn #319 “Lord, dismiss us with thy blessing”

Trinity Hymnal†Commission: Matthew 28:18-20 †Benediction: Numbers 6:24-26†Three-fold Amen †Postlude

Sermon Notes & Prayer Requests

Welcome to Providence Presbyterian Church. If you are visiting with us, please leave your name and address (preferably your email address) in the guest book in the foyer near the front door. Join us this evening at 6 PM for our Evening Prayer service.

Scripture Reading: Psalm 18 Pastor Jeffrey Meyers†Hymn #524   “O God, my Strength” Trinity HymnalOpening PrayerPsalm & Hymn SingScripture Reading: Matthew 21:18-27 Pastor Jeffrey MeyersSermon: WHEN JESUS DOESN’T ANSWER YOU †Hymn #294 “The Lord will come and not be slow” Trinity HymnalPrayer Requests & Prayer†Hymn #349 “This night, O Lord, we bless thee” Trinity Hymnal†Benediction

The Evening Prayer Service October 1, 2017 – 6 PM

The French Confession of Faith John Calvin & Antoine de Chandieu (AD 1559)

From Article 35 “On the Sacraments”

We confess only two sacraments common to the whole Church, of

which the first, Baptism, is given as a testimony of our adoption; for by it we are grafted into the body of Christ, so as to be washed and cleansed by his blood, and then renewed in purity of life by his Holy

Spirit. We hold also that although we are baptized only once, yet the profit to us that it signifies reaches over our whole lives and to our

death, so that we have a lasting witness that Jesus Christ will always be our justification and sanctification. . .

AnnouncementsNursery Volunteers Today: Morning Service – Amy Sturner

Sunday school - Lisa Grove Evening Service: Volunteer Needed

Nursery Volunteers Next Week: Morning Service – Jessica Murphy, Catie Skogen

Sunday school - Mary Beth Denney Evening Service: Volunteer Needed

Sunday School Continues — Today we continue our Fall and Winter semester of Sunday School. There is a chart on the table in the foyer that will help you determine where your child’s class will be meeting this morning. The Adult Sunday School class will meet in the fellowship hall.

Adult Education Class on Beauty — Today we continue our new Fall class on “Christian Perspectives on Beauty.” This morning the class will be taught by Caleb Skogen. There are no required texts for this class. Just come and listen to the lectures and join in on the discussion. We will be meeting in the Fellowship Hall after the coffee break. If you want to access the power point presentations and the audio of previous classes, please visit the “members only” section of our website.

Annual Harvest Party — Our annual Harvest Party will be held at Whitecliff park in Crestwood. The date is set for Saturday, October 14. Look forward to lots of games and contests. And, of course, we will have our annual Chili Cook off contest! Look for more information in the coming weeks.

Greater St. Louis Life Chain — The annual Greater St. Louis Life Chain will be held this afternoon from 1:30-3:30 PM. Everyone at Providence is invited to show support for the sanctity of life by participating in the Providence Life Chain, which will form in front of the our church on Sappington Rd. A light lunch will be provided for all who attend. A sign-up sheet will be passed around during Sunday school this week.

Deacon’s Fund Offering This Morning — The deacons fund provides support for those primarily within our own congregation who are experiencing financial difficulties.  You may use cash or check to contribute. When contributing by check, designate "Deacons Fund" on the memo line.  If contributing cash, use the envelopes provided in your bulletin. Both envelopes and designated checks will be collected in this morning's offering.Envelopes are available in the bulletin and in the foyer.

500th Anniversary Reformation Service — On Sunday October 29 at 6 PM at Twin Oaks Presbyterian Church, we will join with our sister PCA churches across St. Louis to celebrate the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation, singing hymns and psalms, accompanied by a large choir and orchestra comprised of members from our various churches. This will be a glorious event which you will not want to miss!  (NOTE:  Calling all singers!  We'd like to have a very strong turnout for the combined choir, and you don't have to be a member of the Providence choir to participate.  Speak to Bill Hoover if interested.)

Church Calendar

Today Evening Service at 6 PM Greater St. Louis Life Chain, 1:30-3:30PM Wednesday, Oct 4 Men of the Covenant Meeting Choir Rehearsal at 7 PM Thursday, Oct 5 Ladies Bible Study at 9:30 AM Rooted Meeting at 7 PM Monday, Oct 9 WIC Book Discussion, 7 PM Saturday, Oct 14 Fall Harvest Party at Whitecliff Park Sunday, Oct 29 MO Presbytery Reformation Day Service, 6 PM

Ladies Bible Study — The weekly Bible study for women will meet again this Thursday. We meet in the Educational Wing. The study begins at 9:30 AM and ends between 10:30 and 11 AM (depending on the amount of time spent in prayer and fellowship after the teaching and discussion). This fall, we will be reading through the narratives in early Genesis, starting with the story of Cain & Abel in Genesis 4. Pastor Meyers will be teaching and leading the discussion. There’s a lot to learn and talk about in these chapters of Genesis. Child care is provided. If you have any questions, please talk to Kathy Hoegemann or Pastor Meyers.

Dinners for Eight — Sign up for a great time of fellowship as either a host or a guest for our Fall 2017 Dinners for Eight on either Friday, October 20th or Saturday, October 21st, whatever works best for you.  We will then match up the hosts with guests.  It’s up to the host to notify the guests what to bring and what time it starts.  This is an excellent opportunity to  get to know someone new, deepen relationships, and show hospitality.  We are looking into the possibility of providing babysitting at the church – more info to come on that!  If you have questions, contact Monte Shields.

Rooted Meeting — The high school group meets at the the church this Thursday at 7 PM.

Book Discussion —  The Women's Book Discussion Group is gathering at 7:00 PM on Monday, October 9, at Maggie Montgomery's house, 741 Hawbrook, to discuss Brenè Brown's book I Thought it Was Just Me (But It Isn't). You can get a copy of the book at Amazon, through the library, or through other online book sellers. Brene Brown's books deal with the subjects of shame, vulnerability, and getting over fears of what others think of us. This one is no different.  If you don't have time or the desire to read this type of book, contact Debbie Keane for a link to a helpful TED talk on this topic. Sharing reactions to the book and/or this TED talk will make for good discussion.

Men of the Covenant Meeting — The men of the church are invited to attend our Fall Men of the Covenant meeting this Wednesday, October 4, at Pastor Meyers’s home (7 PM). The MOC meetings are times of discussion and fellowship for the men of the church. Everyone is invited. At this meeting we will hear a brief summary of the life and work of the Scottish Presbyterian physicist James Clerk Maxwell (d. 1879). After that we we discuss the lessons and implications of his work.

The Lord’s Service Explained

Our Common TableThe unity of the church is not merely something we claim by faith every week when we sit at the common Table, it is also something we become every week as we eat the bread and drink the wine together. When we join our voices together with the gathered assembly in prayer, confession, singing, eating, and drinking we are weekly reconstituted by the Spirit as the Body of Christ, the very visible, even tangible public presence of God’s saving activity in the world.

Sadly, we often reduce the Lord’s Supper to a means of providing mental stimulus for individual religious meditation. It is thought by many to be just another opportunity to exercise personal, private devotions at church. To some extent, the way we have traditionally practiced the Supper encourages this. Everyone closes their eyes, turns inward, and mediates privately. The corporate, communal dimension of the Sacrament gets smothered beneath what in effect becomes an opportunity for personal quiet time in church. There is, of course, room for silence during the rite of Communion, but there is so much more going on than merely private devotions with the visual aids of bread and wine. Surely the food on the Table is not merely God’s flannel graph for adults.

What we do at the Lord’s Table ought to form us into a particular kind of community—a community of sacrificial love united to one another in Jesus our Savior. The Scriptures, for example, teach the necessity of reconciling any fellow Christians who might be at variance with each other before they could eat the Lord’s Supper together. The unity of the church as the Body of Christ, symbolized in the one loaf, must not be violated by personal disputes among the members of the local body as well as formal ecclesiastical schisms in the larger communion of the saints.

The Apostle Paul says that we assemble “as the church” and we “come together” precisely to eat the Lord’s Supper and that in a openly unified way (1  Cor. 11:18, 20, 33, 34). The more we faithfully do the Lord’s Supper, the more we will experience the communal dimensions of the Sacrament, indeed, the community-forming nature of the ritual meal. Only then will the concrete oneness that our Lord petitioned the Father for be realized in the Church “in order that the world may believe” (John 17:23).

Officers and Resource People

The Session (Pastor & Elders)

Rev. Jeffrey J. Meyers 314-374-5258 Tom Hanley 314-750-0203Robert Murphy 314-705-7445

Ken Pratt 314-803-2340Monte Shields 314-681-1378John Moore (Clerk) 314-849-0597Jason Carter 636-222-8655

The Deacons

Women in the Church Officers & Department Heads

Church Staff

Pastoral Interns

Home and Foreign Ministries

Jamison & Laura Galt New York CityShane & Kim Gibson New Orleans, LAEmad & Michelle Mikhail Middle EastDan & Becky Young MexicoBlake & Cathy Purcell Russia

Brian & Jessie Steadman New York CityKhen & Rith Tombing India (Covenant Children’s Home)Tim & Rosamma Weston ISI (St. Louis)Graham & Sarah Purcell MTW (Russia)

Drew Maney 850-499-7680Cody Dotson 858-699-7742Joel Nelson 573-825-1104

Robert Murphy 314-705-7445Caleb Skogen 910-639-3239

Pastor Jeffrey J. Meyers 314-842-9329 (O)jeffmeyers@me.com 314-374-5258 (C)

Bill Hoover (Music Dir.) 314-966-3523Jennifer Vermeer (Secretary) 208-899-9123

vermeerjenniferl@gmail.com

Daryl Hoegemann 314-714-9270Liessman Sturlaugson 314-323-5589Skip Jaeggi 314-631-4394

Pat Staebel 314-303-4369Todd Tageson 314-892-8982

President: Bo Hanley 314-283-0674Vice President: Kathy Hoegemann314-714-9270Secretary: Debbie Keane 314-249-3108 Treasurer: Amy Sterner 314-606-6900Prayer Chain: Donna Byerly 314-698-6021 madonna.byerly@att.net

Nursery: Mary Beth Denny 636-226-5630 Jennifer Horne

314-225-5036Bethel: Cassie Linton, Denise GerstungKitchen: Kathy Pratt314-856-5778

Maggie Montgomery 314-283-0319Hospitality: Barb Hoover