September 27th, Sermon & Ministry Resources

"The Son Who Said No" (Matthew 21:23-32)

Sep 21, 2026

∙ Paid

Lectionary Readings — Proper 21 — September 27, 2026

Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 78:1-4,12-16; Philippians 2:1-13; Matthew 21:23-32

Call to Worship (based on Matthew 21:23-32)

Leader: By what authority do we dare to gather and call on this name?

People: Not by our own credentials, but because he has called us first.

Leader: It is easy to say, “I will go, Lord,” and then stay behind;

People: let our lives, not merely our lips, answer his call.

Leader: The tax collectors and the sinners believed and were welcomed in;

People: let no pride of position keep us standing outside the gate.

Leader: God does not ask for our polished answers, but for our obedience;

People: let us go into the vineyard, even if we hesitated at first.

Leader: Come, let us worship the God who welcomes the repentant over the merely religious;

People: to him be glory, who judges the heart and not the performance. Amen.

Opening Prayer (based on Psalm 78:1-4,12-16)

Let us pray:

Give ear to us this morning, Lord, as we give ear to you. Incline your heart toward us the way you have asked us to incline our ears toward your teaching, because we have come with a great deal to lay down and not nearly enough strength to carry it alone.

We open our mouths this morning to tell what we have heard and known — what our own people, the ones who raised us in the faith or handed it to us later in life, told us about you. We do not want to hide it from the ones coming after us, Lord. Help this church tell the coming generation your glorious deeds, your might, and the wonders you have done — not as old stories dusted off for nostalgia, but as living proof that you have not changed.

And you have not changed, Lord. You are the same God who performed wonders in the sight of our ancestors, who did not simply rescue your people quietly but did it in full view, so no one could later say it was luck or coincidence. You divided the sea and let them pass through it, and made the waters stand like a heap on either side of them. You led them with a cloud in the daytime, so they were never without direction, and with fire at night, so they were never without light. You split rocks open in the wilderness and gave them water in abundance, from a place where no water should have been. You made streams come out of stone and turned that water into rivers.

Lord, we need you to be that same God to us this morning. We have our own Egypts, our own wildernesses, our own dry and impossible rocks. Some of us are asking you to divide a sea we cannot see a way through. Some of us just need a cloud by day, some daily proof that we are not walking this alone. Be that to us now.

Prepare our hearts to hear your Word, and give us the courage, unlike those who stood in the temple that day, to actually do what it asks of us and not merely to answer it well. We ask this in the name of Jesus, who went into the vineyard for us before he ever asked us to go into it for him. Amen.