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Join Zoom Meeting

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https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82730716739?pwd=javTba0kt5Zak5jN1rOo5Q9MaQIzSU.1

 

Meeting ID: 827 3071 6739

Passcode: 514679

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February 22, 2026

First Sunday in Lent

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SILENT PREPERATION:  The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts!  See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

WELCOME AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

PRELUDE                                         “Guide My Feet”

                                                      Saxophone and Piano

CHIMES

*CALL TO WORSHIP  (Please join responsively)

Leader:            We have entered into the season of Lent.  Sundays, however, are not a part of Lent.                               

People:           We have entered a wilderness time.  Yet, this day of worship is an oasis in the desert.  

Leader:            We are here to worship the God of all creation.  We gather to remember God’s revelation in Jesus Christ.

People:           Today we revisit the Garden of Eden.  We remember God’s overflowing generosity.             

Leader:            We worship God, who gives us choices and limits.  Are we open to God’s counsel and instruction?

People:           Today we remember the consequences of yielding to temptation. We want to learn to make good choices.  

*HYMN                                              “Be Still, My Soul”                                                       #77

PRAYER OF INVOCATION  (Unison)

Life-sustaining God, with us through all our trials and temptations:  Bear us up through this season of self-examination, that we might feed on the bread of your Word, open ourselves to your presence – without demanding proof and signs – and let go of all the idols that surround us. May we worship and serve you with joy and delight, in uprightness of heart, through the grace of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

CALL TO CONFESSION

PRAYER OF CONFESSION  (Unison)

Holy God, we confess our transgressions before you.  We want life to revolve around us, and we resist limits on our freedom – in order to follow the impulses of the moment.  Like a horse or a mule, we resent the bit and bridle that make us useful participants in the community you seek to create.  Rather, we want other people to fit into the patterns that serve us best.    And, when we try to live apart from you, we sense that something is missing from our lives.  Please walk with us – both in this season, and beyond – and help us to become all that we were created to be....

SILENT PRAYER OF CONFESSION

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

ANTHEM                               “Just a Closer Walk with Thee”

 

                                                                              PROCLAIMING GOD’S WORD

PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION

FIRST SCRIPTURE READING          Romans 5:12-21  NT p. 162

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned – for sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law.  Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam, who is a pattern of the one who was to come.  But the free gift is not like the trespass.  For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God – and the gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ – abounded for the many.  And the gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin.  For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the gift following many trespasses brings justification.  If, because of the one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace – and the gift of righteousness – reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.  Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.  For just as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.  But law came in, so that the trespass might increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so grace might also reign through justification – leading to eternal life – through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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                                                          The Word of the Lord           Thanks be to God!

 

SECOND SCRIPTURE READING    Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7, 22-24 OT p.  2

15The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. 16And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”  Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’” 4But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; 5for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  6So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. 7Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

22Then the Lord God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— 23therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. 24He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

                                                        The Word of the Lord           Thanks be to God!

TIME FOR YOUNG DISCIPLES

SERMON                   “Life East of Eden: Getting Back to the Garden”

                                                   Rev. Dr. David Lovelace

 

                                                                      RESPONDING TO GOD’S WORD

*AFFIRMATION OF FAITH (Unison)    

In the beginning, man was made according to the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness, good and upright.  But when at the instigation of the serpent, and by his own fault he abandoned goodness and righteousness, be became subject to sin, death and various calamities.  And what he became by the fall, that is, subject to sin, death and various calamities, so are all those who have descended from him.

 By sin, we understand that innate corruption of man which has been derived or propagated in us all from our first parents, by which we, immersed in perverse desires and averse to all good, are included to all evil.  Full of all wickedness, distrust, contempt and hatred of God, we are unable to do or even to think of anything good of ourselves.  For this reason, by our own deserts being subject to the wrath of God, we are liable to just punishment, so that all of us would have been cast away by God, if Christ, the Deliverer, had not brought us back.  Amen.

*HYMN                                            “Jesus, Lover of My Soul”                                               #222

THE PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE AND THE LORD'S PRAYER

OFFERING INVITATION

OFFERTORY                                          “Jesus Loves Me”

*DOXOLOGY                                                                                                                         #382

*PRAYER OF DEDICATION (Unison)

O God, by your surprising grace our eyes are opened, our ears unstopped, and our hearts attuned to the needs of others.  We give so that the ministries of preaching, teaching, and healing – both among us, and through the outreach of the church.  Expand our horizons, we pray, and tear down the limits of our caring.   Amen

 

                                                                               GOING IN GOD’S NAME

 

*HYMN                                       “Lord, I Want to Be a Christian”                                 #421

*CHARGE AND BENEDICTION                            

*BENEDICTION RESPONSE        “Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley”

                                                                       Choir, Sax, Piano

*POSTLUDE                                     “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”