Call to Worship
Sunday School
The Holy War
by John Bunyan
Sunday Service
Pastoral Reading
Psalm 130
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
2 O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!
3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.
5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.
7 O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
8 And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.
Opening Song
Give Praise to God (CRC #44)
1 Give praise to God who reigns above
for perfect knowledge, wisdom, love;
His judgments are divine, devout,
His paths beyond all tracing out.
Refrain
Come, lift our voice to heav’n’s high throne,
and glory give to God alone!
2 No one can counsel God all-wise
or truths unveil to His sharp eyes;
He marks our paths behind, before;
He is our steadfast Counselor. [Refrain]
3 Nothing exists that God might need,
for all things good from Him proceed.
We praise Him as our Lord, and yet
we never place God in our debt. [Refrain]
4 Creation, life, salvation too,
and all things else both good and true,
come from and through our God always,
and fill our hearts with grateful praise. [Refrain]
Prayer
Focus this week: Graham Mears
Song
I Will Sing of My Redeemer (TH #650)
1 I will sing of my Redeemer,
and his wondrous love to me;
on the cruel cross he suffered,
from the curse to set me free.
Refrain
Sing, O sing of my Redeemer!
With his blood he purchased me;
on the cross he sealed my pardon,
paid the debt and made me free.
2 I will tell the wondrous story,
how my lost estate to save,
in his boundless love and mercy,
he the ransom freely gave. (Refrain)
3 I will praise my dear Redeemer,
his triumphant pow’r I’ll tell,
how the victory he giveth
over sin and death and hell. (Refrain)
4 I will sing of my Redeemer
and his heav’nly love to me;
he from death to life has brought me,
Son of God, with him to be. (Refrain)
Song
Doxology (TH #731)
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
praise him, all creatures here below;
praise him above, ye heavn’ly host;
praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
The Lord’s Table
Christ Our Righteousness
Scripture Reading
Isaiah 29
Ah, Ariel, Ariel,
the city where David encamped!
Add year to year;
let the feasts run their round.
2 Yet I will distress Ariel,
and there shall be moaning and lamentation,
and she shall be to me like an Ariel.
3 And I will encamp against you all around,
and will besiege you with towers
and I will raise siegeworks against you.
4 And you will be brought low; from the earth you shall speak,
and from the dust your speech will be bowed down;
your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost,
and from the dust your speech shall whisper.
5 But the multitude of your foreign foes shall be like small dust,
and the multitude of the ruthless like passing chaff.
And in an instant, suddenly,
6 you will be visited by the Lord of hosts
with thunder and with earthquake and great noise,
with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.
7 And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel,
all that fight against her and her stronghold and distress her,
shall be like a dream, a vision of the night.
8 As when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he is eating,
and awakes with his hunger not satisfied,
or as when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he is drinking,
and awakes faint, with his thirst not quenched,
so shall the multitude of all the nations be
that fight against Mount Zion.
9 Astonish yourselves and be astonished;
blind yourselves and be blind!
Be drunk, but not with wine;
stagger, but not with strong drink!
10 For the Lord has poured out upon you
a spirit of deep sleep,
and has closed your eyes (the prophets),
and covered your heads (the seers).
11 And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot, for it is sealed.” 12 And when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot read.”
13 And the Lord said:
“Because this people draw near with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
while their hearts are far from me,
and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,
14 therefore, behold, I will again
do wonderful things with this people,
with wonder upon wonder;
and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,
and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”
15 Ah, you who hide deep from the Lord your counsel,
whose deeds are in the dark,
and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?”
16 You turn things upside down!
Shall the potter be regarded as the clay,
that the thing made should say of its maker,
“He did not make me”;
or the thing formed say of him who formed it,
“He has no understanding”?
17 Is it not yet a very little while
until Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field,
and the fruitful field shall be regarded as a forest?
18 In that day the deaf shall hear
the words of a book,
and out of their gloom and darkness
the eyes of the blind shall see.
19 The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord,
and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.
20 For the ruthless shall come to nothing
and the scoffer cease,
and all who watch to do evil shall be cut off,
21 who by a word make a man out to be an offender,
and lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate,
and with an empty plea turn aside him who is in the right.
22 Therefore thus says the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob:
“Jacob shall no more be ashamed,
no more shall his face grow pale.
23 For when he sees his children,
the work of my hands, in his midst,
they will sanctify my name;
they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob
and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
24 And those who go astray in spirit will come to understanding,
and those who murmur will accept instruction.”
Preaching the Word
The Sinner’s BIOS is Corrupted
1 Corinthians 2:14
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
and Ephesians 4:23
“…and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,”
Closing Song
Blessed Assurance (TH #693)
1 Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
born of his Spirit, washed in his blood.
Refrain
This is my story, this is my song,
praising my Savior all the day long;
this is my story, this is my song,
praising my Savior all the day long.
2 Perfect submission, perfect delight,
visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
angels descending, bring from above
echoes of mercy, whispers of love. [Refrain]
3 Perfect submission, all is at rest;
I in my Savior am happy and blest;
watching and waiting, looking above,
filled with his goodness, lost in his love. [Refrain]