We mean it when we say, “Everyone is Welcome here!”

June 24- 30, 2026

This Week @ First Church

Wednesday June 24

Mindful Meditation – 6 p.m.

Come every Wednesday evening and leave the troubles of the world outside as you spend an hour in meditation. Enter the church through the Delaware Street entrance.

Sunday June 28

Worship Service – 10 a.m.

Worship Service In-Person and on Facebook

SERMON: “Everyday Kindness, Every Day”” by Tom Seeberger

Based on Romans 6:12-23 and Matthew 10:40-42

Notes for Romans 6:12-23

Our first reading this morning is from ROMANS 6:12-23. The author, Paul, is facing a dilemma as people in the church in Rome are mistaking the grace of God through Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection as cause for them to live unrestrained lives. Indeed, we each have a choice every minute of every day, do we sin or do we serve the Lord and his Kin-dom.

Romans 6:12-23

12  Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.  13  Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every
part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.  14  For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

15  What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means!  16  Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?  17  But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.  18  You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

19  I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.  20  When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.  21  What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22  But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in [a]  Christ Jesus our Lord.

Notes for Matthew 10:40-42

Our Gospel reading today is from Matthew 10:40-42. Jesus is sending his disciples off to spread the word of the kingdom and he has asked them to take no money, nor to accept any money. They are to find a good host to take them in, and when they are received, so Jesus and God the father will be received.

Matthew 10:40-42

40  “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.  41  Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. 42  And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”