Welcome in the precious name of Jesus!

Thank you for join us for our online worship for Sunday, October 4. We pray that all continues to be well with you and your loved ones.  God bless your worship and our life together in Christ!

Our Scripture readings are Philippians 3:4-14, Psalm 80:7-15 and Matthew 21:33-46.  The central theme based on Matthew’s Gospel reading is another kingdom parable about a vineyard owner and its irresponsible tenants.  The Apostle Paul compares the righteousness God gives us in Christ to the shoddy homemade righteousness we cling to.

PHILIPPIANS 3:4b-14

read by Pastor Bruce

[Paul writes:] ^4bIf anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: ⁵circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. ⁷Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. ⁸More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. ¹⁰I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. ¹²Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. ¹³Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

Word of God. Word of life.      Thanks be to God!

PSALM 80:7-15

read by Dave Thomas

Restore us, O God of hosts;
let Your face shine upon us, and we shall be saved.
You have brought a vine out of Egypt;
You cast out the nations and planted it.
 You cleared the ground for it;
it took root and filled the land.
The mountains were covered by its shadow
and the towering cedar trees by its boughs. 
You stretched out its tendrils to the sea
and its branches to the river.  Why have You broken down its wall,
so that all who pass by pluck off its grapes?
The wild boar of the forest has ravaged it,
and the beasts of the field have grazed upon it.
Turn now, O God of hosts,
look down from heaven;
behold and tend this vine;
preserve what Your right hand has planted.

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW 21:33-46

read by Pastor Bruce

[Jesus said to the people:] ³³“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. ³⁴When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. ³⁵But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. ³⁶Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. ³⁷Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ³⁸But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ ³⁹So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. ⁴⁰Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” ⁴¹They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”
⁴²Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: 
‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes’?
⁴³Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. ⁴⁴The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”
⁴⁵When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they realized that He was speaking about them. ⁴⁶They wanted to arrest Him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded Him as a prophet.

The Gospel of our Lord.      Praise to You, O Christ!