Opening response

O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.

Your light springs up for the righteous
and all the peoples have seen your glory.

Prayer of thanksgiving

Blessed are you, Sovereign God,
king of the nations,
to you be praise and glory forever.
From the rising of the sun to its setting
your name is proclaimed in all the world.
As the Sun of Righteousness dawns in our hearts
anoint our lips with the seal of your Spirit
that we may witness to your gospel
and sing your praise in all the earth.
Blessed be God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Blessed be God forever.

The night has passed, and the day lies open before us;
let us pray with one heart and mind.

Silence is kept.

As we rejoice in the gift of this new day,
so may the light of your presence, O God,
set our hearts on fire with love for you;
now and forever.
Amen.

Hymn

Lo, God Is Here!

Gerhard Tersteegen
Translated by John Wesley

Lo, God is here! let us adore,
And own how dreadful is this place!
Let all within us feel his power,
And silent bow before his face.

Lo, God is here! Whom day and night
United choirs of angels sing;
To him, enthroned above all height,
The hosts of heaven their praises bring.

Being of beings, may our praise
Thy courts with grateful fragrance fill!
Still may we stand before thy face,
Still hear and do thy sovereign will.

As flowers their opening leaves display,
And glad drink in the solar fire,
So may we catch thine every ray,
And thus thy influence inspire.

Confession of sin

Let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor.

Silence may be kept.

Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your name. Amen.

Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us all our sins
through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen us in all
goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep us in
eternal life.
Amen.

Psalm 145

𝙍: Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised.

I will exalt You, my God and King;
I will bless Your name forever and ever.
Every day I will bless You,
and I will praise Your name forever and ever.

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised;
His greatness is unsearchable. 𝙍

One generation will commend Your works to the next,
and will proclaim Your mighty acts—
the glorious splendor of Your majesty.
And I will meditate on Your wondrous works.
They will proclaim the power of Your awesome deeds,
and I will declare Your greatness.
They will extol the fame of Your abundant goodness
and sing joyfully of Your righteousness.

The LORD is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in loving devotion. 𝙍

The LORD is good to all;
His compassion rests on all He has made.
All You have made will give You thanks, O LORD,
and Your saints will bless You.
They will tell of the glory of Your kingdom
and speak of Your might,
to make known to men Your mighty acts
and the glorious splendor of Your kingdom.
Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and Your dominion endures through all generations. 𝙍

The LORD is faithful in all His words
and kind in all His actions.

The LORD upholds all who fall
and lifts up all who are bowed down.
The eyes of all look to You,
and You give them their food in season.
You open Your hand
and satisfy the desire of every living thing. 𝙍

The LORD is righteous in all His ways
and kind in all His deeds.
The LORD is near to all who call on Him,
to all who call out to Him in truth.
He fulfills the desires of those who fear Him;
He hears their cry and saves them.
The LORD preserves all who love Him,
but all the wicked He will destroy.
My mouth will declare the praise of the LORD;
let every creature bless His holy name
forever and ever.

Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen.

𝙍: Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised.

Psalm prayer

King of the universe,
you show the bright glory of your reign
in acts of mercy and enduring love;
raise the spirits of the downcast
and restore those who have fallen away,
that we may sing forever of your love;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Psalm 146

𝙍: The LORD reigns forever.

Hallelujah!

Praise the LORD, O my soul.

I will praise the LORD all my life;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.

Put not your trust in princes,
in mortal man, who cannot save.
When his spirit departs, he returns to the ground;
on that very day his plans perish. 𝙍

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD his God,
the Maker of heaven and earth,
the sea, and everything in them.
He remains faithful forever.
He executes justice for the oppressed
and gives food to the hungry. 𝙍

The LORD sets the prisoners free,
the LORD opens the eyes of the blind,
the LORD lifts those who are weighed down,
the LORD loves the righteous.
The LORD protects foreigners;
He sustains the fatherless and the widow,
but the ways of the wicked He frustrates.

The LORD reigns forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.

Hallelujah!

Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen.

𝙍: The LORD reigns forever.

Psalm prayer

Lord of all,
our breath and being come from you,
yet our earthly end is dust;
as you loose the bound and feed the hungry,
so bring us in your mercy through the grave and gate of death
to the feast of eternal life,
where you reign for evermore.

Old Testament reading

Genesis 6:11-7:10

Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and full of violence. And God looked upon the earth and saw that it was corrupt; for all living creatures on the earth had corrupted their ways.

Then God said to Noah, “The end of all living creatures has come before Me, because through them the earth is full of violence. Now behold, I will destroy both them and the earth.

Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark and coat it with pitch inside and out. And this is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. You are to make a roof for the ark, finish its walls a cubit from the top, place a door in the side of the ark, and build lower, middle, and upper decks.

And behold, I will bring floodwaters upon the earth to destroy every creature under the heavens that has the breath of life. Everything on the earth will perish. But I will establish My covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.

And you are to bring two of every living creature into the ark—male and female—to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird and animal and crawling creature will come to you to be kept alive. You are also to take for yourself every kind of food that is eaten and gather it as food for yourselves and for the animals.”

So Noah did everything precisely as God had commanded him.

Then the LORD said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. You are to take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate; a pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate; and seven pairs of every kind of bird of the air, male and female, to preserve their offspring on the face of all the earth. For seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living thing I have made.”

And Noah did all that the LORD had commanded him.

Now Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters came upon the earth. And Noah and his wife, with his sons and their wives, entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. The clean and unclean animals, the birds, and everything that crawls along the ground came to Noah to enter the ark, two by two, male and female, as God had commanded Noah.

And after seven days the floodwaters came upon the earth.

Silence may be kept.

New Testament reading

Matthew 24:1-14

As Jesus left the temple and was walking away, His disciples came up to Him to point out its buildings.

“Do you see all these things?” He replied. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

While Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?”

Jesus answered, “See to it that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. These things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.

Then they will deliver you over to be persecuted and killed, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. At that time many will fall away and will betray and hate one another, and many false prophets will arise and mislead many.

Because of the multiplication of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. But the one who perseveres to the end will be saved.

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

Silence may be kept.

The Benedictus (The Song of Zechariah)

Luke 1:68-79

𝙍: This is the Christ, the Chosen of God, the one who will bring healing to the nations.

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
because He has visited and redeemed His people.
He has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of His servant David,
as He spoke through His holy prophets,
those of ages past,
salvation from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us,
to show mercy to our fathers
and to remember His holy covenant,
the oath He swore to our father Abraham,
to grant us deliverance from hostile hands,
that we may serve Him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before Him
all the days of our lives.

And you, child, will be called
a prophet of the Most High;
for you will go on before the Lord
to prepare the way for Him,
to give to His people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the Dawn will visit us from on high,
to shine on those who live in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet
into the path of peace.

Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen.

𝙍: This is the Christ, the Chosen of God, the one who will bring healing to the nations.

Brief silence.

The Apostle’s Creed

Let us unite in this historic confession of the Christian faith:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

Intercession and thanksgiving

Prayers may be offered for:

the day and its tasks
the world and its needs
the church and her life

Prayers may include the following concerns:
The unity of the church
The peace of the world
The healing of the sick
The revelation of Christ to those from whom his glory is hidden
All who travel

Other intercessions and supplications may be offered as the Holy Spirit leads.

Response

God of grace,
hear our prayer.

Silence may be kept.

Collect of the day

Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.
Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer

Believing the promises of God, as our Savior taught us, so we pray

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and forever.
Amen.

Conclusion

May Christ, who sends us to the nations, give us the power of his Spirit.
Amen.