Lent 4B – March 10
March 10, 2024
Fourth Sunday in Lent
Say No Lenten Series: “Condemnation”
Call to Worship
L: God’s love is for all of creation.
A: The vastness of God is for human, animal, soil, and sun, all together as God’s beloved.
L: God has not come into the world in Jesus to condemn us.
A: Jesus has come to live God’s love in the flesh.
L: While the world is dim with injustice and the feeling of loneliness,
A: it is in Jesus that the light of love illumines our path of friendship. Come, let us join our lives with the Friend, whose love is for the whole world. Let us worship God!
Invocation
O God who is Friend, the vastness of your love flows through all of creation, and this is cause for rejoicing. For all the harshness and condemnation that we see in the world, you have come to us out of love, compassion, and to save us from ourselves. We acknowledge our belief that you have come to redeem, to heal, to restore, and forgive, not just some of the world, but all of the world. May our worship embody the love and light you bring in Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.
Prayer of Transformation and New Life
Holy One, we confess there are moments when we desire to see you bring condemnation on others or wish that your love was not for the whole world, but just a few. Like us. But, your love is bigger than our limited lenses, broader than our small scope of vision of all that love embodies. Help us to see the world as you do. Help us to love as you do. Release us from our need to condemn and set us free for love. For, it is what you came enfleshed to show us. Amen.
Words of Grace
Jesus has come into the world not to condemn it, but to set us free by love. Know the grace of God surrounds you and keeps you in love now and forever. Amen.
Invitation to Generosity
Today we rejoice in a God who comes to redeem the world through a pouring out of Divine Love. Our rejoicing is offered with the generosity of our energy, our spiritual gifts, and our treasure. We are invited as God’s beloved children to express our rejoicing this day through the giving of our gifts in love. May it be so.
Prayer of Thanksgiving
Thank you, God, for loving us to the very ends of the earth and back. Your willingness to say yes to coming in the flesh to redeem our world through love and no to the powers of oppression has led us to give of ourselves generously this day. Take these gifts and multiply them across this world that you love so extravagantly. Amen.
Benediction
Go, dear ones, in the hope of the one who does not condemn, but brings life, light, and compassion to all. Step into this world in the assurance that God’s love is enough for our lives. In fact, it is more than enough. In the name of the Friend, the Companion, and the Comforter, go forth in peace. Amen.
Condemnation: Service Prayers for the Fourth Sunday in Lent Year B was written by The Rev. Dr. Chad Abbott, Conference Minister in the Indiana-Kentucky Conference.
