Preparing for Sunday, 7/29/12

Hey guys,
hope you're planning to be there with us tomorrow morning. We have some good stuff going on in our gathering. We have the opportunity and joy to participate in communion together, to remember Christ's death and sacrifice for our sins, and to value Jesus Christ above all the other things that compete for our attention and affection. I quoted Rick Holland several months ago because some of his quotes about communion are very helpful. I thought I'd include a quote this week, by J.C. Ryle, quoted by Rick Holland in his book Uneclipsing The Son. Ryle says,

"A sense of our own unworthiness is the best worthiness we can bring to the Lord's Table (communion). A deep feeling of our own entire indebtedness to Christ for all we have and hope for is the best feeling we can bring with us."

Jordan will preach tomorrow on 1 Corinthians 4:6-13. Follow the link to read the text beforehand, take some notes, think through what Paul's getting at in the passage, and maybe even read the 3 chapters leading up to this passage to get ready!

Here's our song list for the morning:

1. Blessed Be Your Name
This song's theology is solid, and its poetry is quite good. This tune proclaims the great joy in knowing God's sovereign goodness. That we can bless the name of the Lord (desire only God), whether He "gives or takes away" from us in this life. Great, great truth in this song.

2. Before The Throne Of God Above
This hymn unpacks the person of our Savior, and what He's accomplished for His people in His death and resurrection. It says that before the throne of God, where sin is judged and a sinner cannot stand, we have a great High Priest who lives and pleads for us! If you've been saved because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Christ Himself pleads for you and stands always in your place in the courts of God.

3. All I Have Is Christ
This one is a final response to the truths we've been singing about - that God has drawn us to Himself, paid for our sins once and for all, and welcomed us into eternal, joyous life, all through His Son. The last verse of this song says, as a response to the Gospel, "O Father, use my ransomed life in any way You choose/And let my song forever be 'My only boast is You!"

See you in the morning, 9:00!

Also, hope you'll join us for our Sunday RENEW night (the last one for the year!) at 5:00 PM for food, 6:00 for singing and teaching. More information in service tomorrow morning if you need it.

Preparing for Sunday, 7/22/12

Hey folks,
for your reading pleasure, exhortation and edification, Jordan will be preaching on 1 Corinthians 4:1-5 tomorrow. He'll be addressing faithfulness to the Gospel as a steward appointed by God, and not fearing the judgement of men but fearing God alone. Hopefully the mindset Paul reveals in this passage keeps us from being wimpy Christians in our witness to the Gospel, and in how we process and respond to the criticism of others. Give the passage a few reads before tomorrow's preaching to get ready!

We'll sing the following songs tomorrow morning:

1. Forever
Our "call to worship" for the morning, with this song we call each other to sing praise to our God who has promised to always be faithful to His people. The songs says, "For the life that's been reborn, His love endures forever." God promises never to desert the ones He has caused to be born again to new life in Christ. What a great truth to spark some hearty singing as we gather tomorrow!

2. O Worship The King
This is a "reworking" of a classic hymn, that rejoices in more of God's character. In the 3rd verse, there's a unique description of God's attributes: "Immeasurable might, ineffable love." "Ineffable" means something is so great, it is beyond adequate description. Not many songs employ this word to describe God's love, but I think this is appropriate here, that the God of infinite, sovereign might would love us to the point of giving His Son as a sacrifice, to pay for our sins.

3. Come Thou Fount
One of our church favorites, this hymn meditates on several aspects of the Gospel. One to be aware of for tomorrow is the prayer in verse 3, for God to bind our "wandering hearts" to Himself. We know that our hearts would wander from God if He, in His grace, didn't hold us close, planted and rooted in the work of Jesus for us on the cross.

4. Behold Our God
A new song we introduced about a month ago. We'll end our whole set tomorrow by proclaiming "Behold our God, seated on His throne/Come let us adore Him!" God is worthy of all of our adoration. He is supremely valuable, and the source of joy. And because of the Gospel, we can draw near to Him and behold His full character with joy.

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Also, we hope you're planning on being there tomorrow night for RENEW. Counting tomorrow night, we have 2 more RENEW summer nights. Lets make the most of these, and come out for a time of fellowship/food, singing, and teaching from the Word. Tomorrow night is "bring your own family picnic" night, and Joe Keller will be teaching us. See you there!

A Quote To Ponder: "We shall not sing solos.."

Food for thought, on how our singing in our church gatherings reflects our worship in the new heavens and new earth:

"[In Heaven] We shall sit with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in eternal fellowship. We shall hold high converse with the noble host of the elect, all reigning with Him who by His love and His potent arm has brought them safely home.

"We shall not sing solos, but in chorus shall we praise our King. Heaven is a place of victory realized. Whenever, Christian, thou hast achieved a victory over thy lusts—whenever after hard struggling, thou hast laid a temptation dead at thy feet—thou hast in that hour a foretaste of the joy that awaits thee when the Lord shall shortly tread Satan under thy feet, and thou shalt find thyself more than conqueror through Him who hath loved thee."

- Charles Spurgeon, in Morning and Evening, via Tolle Lege.

A Quote To Ponder

"A Christian's heart should be brimming everyday with the song of Calvary."

- C.J. Mahaney, in The Cross Centered Life

Preparing for Sunday, 7/15/12

Hey folks,
here's to a little last-minute prep for Sunday morning. I'll keep this short, since time is also short.

Jordan will preach tomorrow morning on 1 Corinthians 3:16-23, focusing on all we've been given in Christ, by God Himself. This is the Apostle Paul's big killer of boasting in this passage: that God truly has and continues to give us EVERYthing in His Son. So why would we boast in which teachers we follow in the Church, or in abilities that we have, or programs we've been a part of? We need to guard ourselves against becoming short-sighted to the big, huge, grandiose picture of what God really has given us in Christ. Hope you'll be there with us to hear the sermon tomorrow, as Jordan unpacks this text.

We'll sing the following songs:

1. Let Your Kingdom Come
(New song from last week. I'm including the YouTube player for this at the bottom of the post. Give it a few more listens!)

2. Before The Throne Of God Above
Here's a line from this hymn, that tells us exactly how to fight the accusations and temptations of the Devil. Ready? "When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within/Upward I look and see Him there Who made an end of all my sin/Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free/For God the Just is satisfied to look on Him and pardon me!"

3. Christ Is Risen
"Let no one caught in sin remain inside the lie of inward shame/But fix our eyes upon the cross, and run to Him who showed great love/And bled for us, freely He bled for us."

4. It Is Well With My Soul
"My sin, Oh! the bliss of this glorious thought/My sin not in part, but the whole/Was nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more/Praise the Lord, praise the Lord oh my soul!"

Hope to see you in the morning!

A Quote(s) To Ponder

Y'all know I love to read about worship, and specifically church corporate worship. And I love to pass on great thoughts from books, sermons, and articles that I find that really say something worth considering. I hope this is helpful, both for our music team folks, and our other church worshipers who visit this blog. These are a couple of quotes from Brian Chapell, from his book Christ Centered Worship, which is great by the way.

"Concerns for both adequate performance and grateful praise will make us strive for excellence in worship expression, but only the latter [grateful praise,] truly honors God alone."

And,

"Over time, only what truly serves the ministry of the Word survives in worship ... Where Scripture holds sway, the church will always find its way."

Preparing for Sunday, 7/8/12

Well folks, it's been a couple of weeks since the last "preparing for Sunday" post. Hope this is helpful to you as you think ahead to Sunday morning.

 Jordan will preach on 1 Corinthians 3:10-15, on building a local church on the only real foundation, which is Christ. Paul says to take care how we build, and that God will indeed test at the end, whether or not we built the lives of our church families appropriately on Christ, or not. A question is this: do we rely on the "wood, hay and straw" of superficial entertainment and selfish pursuits in my church, or do I build true, Gospel-centered relationships that honor and proclaim Christ as glorious? As Jordan told me yesterday, this is "a serious local church passage." Hope you're there to take part in the hearing of the preaching. Read the passage ahead of time to enrich what you get out of it on Sunday (the link is above if you missed it).

We'll sing the following songs on Sunday:

1. God Of Wonders 
A church favorite, this is a great "call-to-worship" type of song, that gives us words to sing together, that we'll celebrate and draw near to God when we wake in the morning, and call on Him to save us when we "stumble in the darkness."

2. Let Your Kingdom Come (NEW SONG)
We're introducing a new song this week, so if you're reading this, make sure you click the link above and give it a few listens so you can belt it out with us on Sunday. This song is a prayer of request, for God to give us courage to proclaim the Gospel in a dark, fallen world. This song is also great in that it helps us shape our desire for Christ's Kingdom to come, and rejoices in God allowing us to take part in His Kingdom. The song says, "Your glorious cause, O God, engages our hearts/May Jesus Christ be known wherever we are."

 3. How Deep The Father's Love For Us 
We'll focus our time, in connection with the 1 Corinthians passage, onto Christ's saving work on the cross. This song proclaims God's sovereign, wise purposes in crushing His own Son to save us, and draw His people out of their sin. It says, "Why should I gain from His reward, I cannot give an answer/But this I know with all my heart: His wounds have paid my ransom."

 4. You Are My King
This song will be a little bit more of a response to the great, lofty truths we sang in the last one. We'll proclaim Christ as King, and as the King Who not only rules, but also died to pay our ransom. The goals of our songs this week are to help us rest and have joy in Christ, our King and Savior. But I guess that's the goal of our songs every week.

Hope you're there with us Sunday! Enjoy preparing!