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“Watch Your Mouth”
8:30 a.m.
Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost
September 15, 2024
Rev. Dr. Donovan Drake
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James 3:1-12
1 Do not become teachers in large numbers, my brothers, since you know that we who are teachers will incur a [a]stricter judgment. 2 For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in [b]what he says, he is a perfect man, able to [c]rein in the whole body as well. 3 Now if we put the bits into the horses’ mouths so that they will obey us, we direct their whole body as well. 4 Look at the ships too: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are nevertheless directed by a very small rudder wherever the inclination of the pilot determines. 5 So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things.
See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire, the very world of unrighteousness; the tongue is set among [d]our body’s parts as that which defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of our [e]life, and is set on fire by [f]hell. 7 For every [g]species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the human [h]race. 8 But no one among mankind can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people, who have been made in the likeness of God; 10 from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, these things should not be this way. 11 Does a spring send out from the same opening both [i]fresh and bitter water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, bear olives, or a vine bear figs? Nor can salt water produce [j]fresh.
“Roots Not Fruits”
11 a.m.
Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost
September 15, 2024
Rev. Dr. Kenda Creasy Dean
John 15:1-5 | Romans 11:16b
1“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He [a]prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. 3 You are already [b]clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in Me, [c]and I in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit [d]of itself [e]but must remain in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him [f]bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
16 If the first piece of dough is holy, the lump is also; and if the root is holy, the branches are as well.