Worship Notes for 3/2/2008
Mar 1st, 2008
Greetings, Redeemer Family!
But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:31)
This week we begin a study of the Gospel of John, with the prayer that these words, written by the Apostle John, might have fruit in our hearts and lives. Mike will be preaching on John 20:30,31 in a message titles “That You May Believe.” Please read this Scripture passage ion preparation for worship this Sunday.
Our Call to Worship is a reading from Isaiah 12, containing two wonderful songs of redemption:
Leader: In that day you will say:
Congregation: “I will praise you, O LORD:
Although you were angry with me,
your anger has turned away and you have comforted me.
Surely God is my salvation; I will trust in him and not be afraid.
The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation.”
Leader: With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
In that day you will say:
Congregation: Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name;
make known among the nations what he has done,
and proclaim that his name is exalted.
Sing to the LORD, for he has done glorious things;
let this be known to all the world.
Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion,
for great is the Holy One of Israel among you.
The hymn we use to respond to this call for praise is the contemporary hymn We Come, O Christ, to You. The text was written in 1946 by Margaret Clarkson to be sung at the first national conference of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. This conference was the precursor of what we know today as the Urbana conference, a yearly national conference for the encouragement of university students.
Note the structure of this text:
• The first verse is an acknowledgement of the attributes of Jesus
• Verses 2-4 walk out Christ as the Way, Truth, and Life
• The hymn concludes with the 5th verse written as a song of giving ourselves to Christ- and especially underscores the prayer that others may see the life of Christ in us and believe in his name.
The tune will be familiar to many of you as the same tune we use to sing “Rejoice, the Lord is King.”
If there are young children in your home, point help them see the Way/Truth/Life structure of verses 2-4 and help them to see this in Scripture (John 14:6).
We Come, O Christ, to You
We come, O Christ, to You, True Son of God and man,
By Whom all things consist, In Whom all life began:
In You alone we live and move,
And have our being in Your love.
You are the Way to God, Your blood our ransom paid;
In You we face our Judge and Maker unafraid.
Before the throne absolved we stand,
Your love has met Your law’s demand.
You are the living Truth! All wisdom dwells in You,
The Source of every skill, The One Eternal True!
O great I AM! In You we rest,
Sure answer to our every quest.
You only are true Life, to know You is to live
The more abundant life that earth can never give:
O risen Lord! We live in You,
In us each day Your life renew!
We worship You, Lord Christ, Our Savior and our King,
To You our youth and strength adoringly we bring:
So fill our hearts, that all may view
Your life in us, and turn to You!
Text: Margaret Clarkson
Music John Darwall
©1987 Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship
CCLI #2419466
This week we observe the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper together, and perhaps a look at the cycle of preparation for the Sacrament in our Order of Worship will help you to prepare personally before Sunday morning.
The cycle of preparation for the Lord’s Supper begins with a historic prayer of confession of sin which we will pray together. We occasionally use printed prayers so that we can confess corporately; perhaps this is new to you, but I encourage you to allow the words of the prayer to become your own and to guide your heart into a directed sort of self-examination:
Most merciful God,
we confess that we have
sinned against You
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved You
with our whole heart;
we have not loved
our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry
and we humbly repent.
For the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in Your will,
and walk in Your ways,
to the glory of Your Name. Amen
We follow this confession of sin with a promise of the Gospel, from I John 1:6,7:
“If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”
What we will do next is confess what we believe using the words of a historic creed used by the church catholic (understood as meaning “universal” for almost two thousand years:
The Apostles’ Creed
I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
He descended into hell.
The third day He rose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
From there He will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
May we together taste and see the goodness of the Lord; and may we believe in his name and more and more delight in his ways and have a passion for the extension of his kingdom.
Blessings in Christ,
John Bennetch