Sunday service for 13 September 2026

Sunday 13 September 2026, NL1-1, Flourish In Faith 1
Gourock St John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse phone: 632143
Email: tpeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk

If the video doesn’t play, please click here to view it on our YouTube channel!

Sanctuary Prelude Music (praise band)

Welcome and Announcements
*loop
*tea/coffee
*no Bible study this week, Teri away during the week
*choir rehearsal

God-sightings

We Gather As God’s Family (As the Bible is brought in, we stand and sing) (praise band)
A family gathered in love,
striving for justice and joy,
blessing the broken-hearted,
and sharing the hope of God’s kingdom.

Opening Responses
1: Look to the skies —
2: the bow hangs in the clouds
3: a promise never to be forgotten
All: a promise that can never be overcome.
1: Look around at the world —
2: everything pointing to grace
3: grace found first in the eyes of God
All: a promise that can never be overcome.

Sanctuary Hymn GWA199: Oh How Good It Is (praise band)

Prayer
Creator God,
you know us better than we know ourselves.
We confess that we often get our place in the story mixed up.
We like to think we are always the good guys
and we look down on those who should have
known better, tried harder, and stayed away from the wrong place at the wrong time.
Forgive us when we think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think.
Forgive us when we assume we’re your favourites,
and others get what they deserve.
Forgive us when we see grace for us and judgment for them.
Forgive us and set us back into right relationship,
with you and with our neighbours.
Walk with us today, O God,
and keep us walking with you —
right alongside, in step,
close enough to see the love in your eyes.
However faltering our feet,
however imperfect our follow-through,
remember your covenant
and keep us with you.
We ask in your most holy name. Amen.

Hear this good news: God knows the full truth of us, and chooses love. God chooses relationship. God chooses covenant. God chooses us. Look to the rainbow, and know yourself loved, and live at peace. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Online Hymn GWA199: Oh How Good It Is

Sanctuary Children’s Time

Sanctuary Hymn 181: For the Beauty of the Earth (Jean favourite) (organ)

Scripture Reading: From Genesis 6, 8, and 9
The Lord saw that the wickedness of humans was great in the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humans on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out from the earth the humans I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air—for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favour in the sight of the Lord.
These are the descendants of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. And Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw that the earth was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth. And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth. Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above, and put the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks. For my part, I am going to bring a flood of waters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive. Also take with you every kind of food that is eaten, and store it up, and it shall serve as food for you and for them.” Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.

((And it rained…and it flooded…and after the rain stopped, and the flood receded, the ark came to rest on the ground again, and we continue the reading in chapter 8.))

At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent out the raven, and it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. Then he sent out the dove from him to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground, but the dove found no place to set its foot, and it returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took it and brought it into the ark with him. He waited another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark, and the dove came back to him in the evening, and there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. Then he waited another seven days and sent out the dove, and it did not return to him any more.

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

For the word of God in scripture
For the word of God among us
For the word of God within us
Thanks be to God.

Sermon: reflecting the God we see
This is a story that many people know — or at least think we know. We’ve seen the nursery decor, sung the arky-arky song, and looked at rainbows and said they’re about God’s promise.

We usually gloss over the part about how the problem in the story is that the people on earth are violent toward one another and it spills over to the rest of creation. How violence is their first inclination and they act on it more often than not. We definitely gloss over the part where God was so heartbroken about it that God decided to give them all a taste of their own medicine, and just violently bring the whole creation experiment to an end because the people were going to end up killing everything anyway. And yet in the very next breath, our heartbroken God backtracks and decides to save animals and some people after all. And in the end, God realises that using violence to fight violence doesn’t work…instead, God promises never to use violence again, because it’s actually against God’s own nature. God hangs up the bow, the weapon, pointing away from the earth, and chooses relationship instead. God chooses to get closer and closer to humanity, walking with us, speaking with us, coming to us in the flesh…it’s by being together that God will work to change our violent ways into the harmony and love that God planned for creation in the beginning — when behold, it was very good.

For all the people who claim the Old Testament is full of God’s wrath, they seem to miss that it’s a story of God reaching out for a closer relationship. And that violence is not actually God’s nature, indeed God hung up the weapon, the bow, forever — though humans often see it there when we are at our own most violent.

Because we often find what we are looking for, don’t we? And throughout the ages, people have often looked for a reason, a justification, for violence. Too often, they have found it in the pages of scripture, and they have looked at a God they believed to be violent, and turned that belief into violence that spreads through the land. In words and in actions, we often choose violence against our fellow humans and against the earth, and we claim that it’s because God said so, God gave it to us, God allows it, God did it first, or whatever.

Interestingly, there’s just one person in this story who sees differently…Noah. Noah was the singular person — not just in this time but actually in the entire Hebrew Bible — who is called a righteous man. And many people have wondered what made him so different that God would choose him to be the one to build the ark…the one who would save the creatures and repopulate the earth.

A Hebrew scholar friend of mine noted that where it says “Noah found favour in God’s eyes” the word “favour” is actually the word “grace.” And they suggested that perhaps it was not only a statement about how God looked at Noah, but also a statement about how Noah looked at God. While everyone else looked and saw wrath and justification for violence, Noah looked and saw grace. Noah saw God truly as God is, while everyone else saw God made in their own flawed image, and both acted on what they saw…one way leading to righteousness, and the other to destruction.

And God has spent the rest of human history revealing himself more and more so that we can see…and become ever more in God’s image too. So that we can see the choice for relationship, for a covenant that never gives up, for community that encompasses every living being — the choice for grace.

If we look into God’s eyes and see grace, we too will hang up our weapons and choose peace. If we look at God and see the creator who refuses to leave a single speck of creation out, we too can reflect that same inclusive love. If we look at God and see the One who seeks out relationship and wants to be so close that he’ll even take on human flesh and live among us to show us the truth…turning our lives to that relationship is how we will flourish.

What we see when we look at God defines how we — who are made in God’s image — live. Everyone else saw violent power, but Noah found grace in God’s eyes, and that changed everything…and it still can.

May it be so. Amen.

Online Hymn: Make Me An Instrument
Sanctuary Hymn 528: Make Me a Channel of Your Peace (Fiona Mc favourite) (organ)

Sanctuary Offering: Choir to sing “My Life Flows On”

Offering Response GWA153: God the Maker of the Heavens, verse 1 (tune: Converse) (organ)
God, the maker of the heavens,

and the planet that we share,
show us how to live, like Jesus,
lives of gratitude and care.
Make us mindful of the footprints
from the lives that we pursue.

Make us partners in your mission:

you are making all things new.

Introduction to the Harvest 1 Season: Flourish In Faith
Have you ever received something that you felt you did not deserve? A good thing, that you had not worked for? A trial that felt unjust? Or have you ever trusted in a promise that seemed to take a while to be realised? Or have you felt you were being asked to do something you did not feel experienced enough or brave enough to do?
When we studied the readings set for the harvest season, we noticed that God’s sending is often uncomfortable, requiring us to leave the familiar and face the unknown. We also saw that God was eager to bless, keen to take our burdens, generation after generation and for all time, His spirit pushing us into places we might not go if we thought we were alone so that all might ultimately flourish. Because there is always room for more, and always enough for all.
The story of God’s faithfulness in and through every season stretches back thousands of years.
It is our heritage. The theme of God’s constancy to His people winds its way through our readings this season, through characters just like ourselves: undeniably human, complicated, fallible, finding themselves in all kinds of challenging situations, having to make choices, being victors and being vulnerable. We see how the beautiful partnership between God and his people unfolds in:
* Noah’s trust in God’s oddly specific building instructions and surviving the end of the world;
* Abram’s obedience in a late age relocation to a land he did not know, with no map to get there, yet he did;
* Joseph’s diligence, both as a valued servant and then as a valued prisoner, blessed in the worst of times;
* Moses’s leadership, guiding a disgruntled, homesick people through a wilderness to an uncertain future; yet he receives God’s timeless commandments for his people;
* Joshua’s strength, succeeding Moses in leadership, carrying that burden to reprimand a people going astray, yet ultimately driving them to renewed commitment to God.
In these stories we won’t see easy prosperity, quick wins or magic formulae for success. Rather, we will see something more like our own lives. We will recognise being in a difficult place, outside our comfort zone, far from what has been home, or perhaps being misunderstood, maligned or even misused. But so too, will we be reminded of the times we have benefitted at some point from receiving a gift we did nothing to earn: be it friendship, guidance, a kind word, a helping hand, a helping cheque, an opportunity to grow, an encounter that changed our lives. And through the constant change life brings, so too does God’s love remain constant, blessing us that we may be a blessing to others. And we flourish not because everything has always gone well for us, but because God intends for us to be fruitful through the seasons and gives us what we need to get where He wants us to be.
This season we will acknowledge God’s love in our lives through people, places and times on the Blessing Board which Teri will tell us about in more detail. We plan to host a Christian Aid Just Peace film study and discussion night on 6 October. We will have our Harvest Service on 11 October, with a particular focus on the plight of refugees. We will also be looking at how we can encourage and support a new baby group.
So, as we move into Harvest time, we reflect on what we have received and what we can give, on our inheritance and our legacy, gratitude for God’s generosity, and giving generously where we can, when we can, flourishing in our faith to bless our community and our world now, and in the times ahead.

Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
Holy Creator God,
maker of earth and heaven,
grace shines forth from your eyes
and we give you thanks.
You care for your creation,
you promise and you provide.
We pray today for the grace to care as much for creation as you do.
Open a window in our hearts
to let in the cries of the earth,
the needs of the animals we share this place with,
the life of the world,
that we may hear and respond,
that we may bring their cries before you in prayer,
that we may be moved to action.
You are love, and from love you create and redeem and sustain.
We pray today for the grace to love as you love.
Open a window in our hearts
to let in the cries of our neighbours,
the needs of those we might otherwise think undeserving,
the longing of those desperate for peace founded on justice,
the hunger and thirst for food and for hope —
and to join our voices with theirs
asking for your Spirit to move again,
providing and transforming this world
until your abundance is real for all —
not only an idea, but an action.
As you have set your bow in the clouds,
give all humanity courage to hang up our weapons too —
whether bombs or words that wound.
Make justice and peace and compassion both the goal and the means of reaching it.
As you have promised to be in relationship despite our flaws,
give us courage to seek relationship across divides too.
Make a way where it feels like there is no way.

On the 13th day of the month we join our hearts as your St John’s family to pray:
*For all who live and work along Shore Street to Eastern View.
*For the staff of St John’s
*For the land, people, and governments of the nations of Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, São Tomé & Principe, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Angola.

As grace shines from your eyes,
we pray today that grace would shine from us, too,
that we might be a window revealing your love and care for the world.
We ask in the name of Jesus
who embodied your grace and providing among us and who taught us to pray together:
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.

Sanctuary Hymn: O, Creator of the Cosmos (words: Cathy Yost; tune: Beach Spring) (organ)

Sending
Go out from this time of worship to live as a reflection of the grace you have seen in God’s eyes.
As you go, may the Spirit of God go above you to watch over you. May the Spirit of God go beside you to be your companion. May the Spirit of God go before you to show you the way, and behind you to push you into places you might not go if you thought you were alone. And may the Spirit of God go within you, to remind you that you are loved more deeply than you can possibly imagine. May the fire of God’s love burn brightly in you, and through you into the world. Go in peace. Amen.

Sung Benediction Response (John L Bell, tune Gourock St John’s) (organ)
Now may the Lord of all be blessed,
Now may Christ’s gospel be confessed,
Now may the Spirit when we meet
Bless sanctuary and street.

Recessional / Postlude Music (organ)

Announcements

* We worship in the sanctuary on Sundays at 11am, and Sunday worship is also online.

* The first Sunday of the month at 11am is an all-age service, with different ways of encountering God’s word without a traditional sermon. All people — young and old, different personalities and learning styles, are welcome! You’ll find a more informal service with a variety of music, a Bible story, prayer, and some more interactive elements. The online service for the first Sunday will therefore also be different — there will still be a reading, prayers, and music, but usually not a sermon.

* The Kirk Session will meet on Monday 21 September at 7pm.

* The Contact Group starts its season with a Pot Luck Lunch on Tuesday 22nd September at 1pm. This will be followed by a short AGM. All are welcome to join us – just bring along a small sweet or savoury item for the lunch.

* Wednesday Bible Study is off this week and will resume on Wednesday 23 September when we are beginning a study of the five “festival scrolls” guided by the book Forgotten Books of the Bible by Robert Williamson Jr.

* Bowl & Blether is on the first Mondays of the month, with doors open from 11:30-1:30, and lunch served from noon. All are welcome for a bowl of soup, a toastie, a friendly chat in our warm hall! We will take August off, so see you next month on 5 October.

* Starter Packs are in need of Bathroom/Kitchen Cleaner, Washing Up Liquid, Shaving Foam, Hand Wash,Toothbrushes for Adults.

The FoodBank are short of Biscuits and Juice as well as the usual items: Meals, Beans, Vegetables and Soup.

You can bring donations to the church and place them into the boxes in the vestibule. Thank you!

* We are moving into a time of Harvest, and turning our attention to how God’s faithfulness ensures our flourishing, through every season. To help us celebrate that He keeps His promise to be with us always, no matter the circumstance, you might like to bring to church a photo capturing what this has meant to you, personally. The photo could be of a person who has been a particular help or encouragement to you, or of an occasion or point in time that has been important to you in your faith.
Please place your photo in an envelope with your full name written on the front and give this to Anne Love. Anne will photocopy the photo, and return the original to you. These pictures, over a period of weeks, will form a collage of gratitude on the board we have put up on the wall: a visual testament to how we form part of a living story, a legacy, blessed by many hands to be fruitful, that we may in turn bless others.

* Free period products are available in the church toilets for anyone who might need them, thanks to Hey Girls and Inverclyde Council.

* Did you know that the ministry we do at St John’s costs about £3000 per week and we are currently running about £500 short? Everything we do is funded by your generous giving — all our support for young people, older people, bereavement care, community outreach, worship, study, spiritual growth, and community work is because of your offering. If you would like to set up a standing order in order to facilitate your spiritual discipline of giving, or if you would like to make an extra gift to support the ministry St. John’s does in our parish, you can give online by clicking here. If you would like to set up a standing order, please contact Teri and she can give you the treasurer’s details. You can also send your envelopes to the church or the manse by post and we will ensure they are received.

* Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Youtube, and to sign up for our email newsletter! Midweek you can watch Wine and the Word and Theology Thursday on Youtube, get snippets of thought or inspiration following Teri on TikTok, and of course keep up with announcements and events on Facebook and our weekly email.