Prelude                                                                                                              Karl M. Johnson

Welcoming & Announcements                                                           Service Leader Will Parker

Call to Worship—Psalm 63:1-8

                                A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.

                              ¹ O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;

                     my soul thirsts for you;

                    my flesh faints for you,

                     as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

                              ² So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,

                     beholding your power and glory.

                              ³ Because your steadfast love is better than life,

                     my lips will praise you.

                              ⁴ So I will bless you as long as I live;

                              in your name I will lift up my hands.

                              ⁵ My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food,

                     and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,

                              ⁶ when I remember you upon my bed,

                     and meditate on you in the watches of the night;

                              ⁷ for you have been my help,

                     and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.

                              ⁸ My soul clings to you;

                     your right hand upholds me.

Hymn 53         Praise to the Lord the Almighty

Scripture Reading—Genesis 3 (selected)      The very commandment that promised                                                                                        life proved to be death to me. Romans 7.10

¹ Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

² And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, ³ but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”

⁴ But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. ⁵ For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

⁶ So 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. ⁷ Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

⁸ And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

¹⁰ And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

¹¹ He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

¹² The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”

¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”….

¹⁷ And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree

of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’

cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;

¹⁸ thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.

¹⁹ By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread,

till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken;

for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”….

²² Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” ²³ therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴ He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

Confession, Thanksgiving & Intercession                                                  Elder Roger Price

Words of Assurance—Romans 7:4-6    In Christ we died to the law’s condemnation,                       born again to be alive to God who instructs us from the heart.

⁴ Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that  you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may  bear fruit for God. ⁵ For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the  law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. ⁶ But now we are released from the  law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit     and not in the old way of the written code.

The Love of Christ is Rich and Free

Baptism of  Lola Rose Weber

         Daughter of Nathan and Amanda Weber

Hymn 419   In Your Arms Lord Jesus Christ

Scripture Reading—Romans 7:18-25       We live between two resurrections:                                                                                           Christ’s and our own. Romans 6:5; 8:23

¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

²¹ So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. ²² For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, ²³ but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Hymn 170    Fairest Lord Jesus

Tithes, Offering & Offertory   Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken                         CPC Choir

¶Children whose parents desire are dismissed to Jr & Children’s Church

Scripture Reading—Romans 7.7-12  For I delight in the law of god in my inner being. (7:22)

⁷ What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” ⁸ But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. ⁹ I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.

¹⁰ The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. ¹¹ For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. ¹² So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good….

Sermon                                             Romans 7.1-6                                    Pastor David O’Dowd

Deacons’ Offering & Sending Forth

By Faith (song)

Benediction & Postlude