Call to Worship
Sunday School
The Holy War
by John Bunyan
Sunday Service
Pastoral Reading
Psalm 70
Make haste, O God, to deliver me!
O Lord, make haste to help me!
2 Let them be put to shame and confusion
who seek my life!
Let them be turned back and brought to dishonor
who delight in my hurt!
3 Let them turn back because of their shame
who say, “Aha, Aha!”
4 May all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you!
May those who love your salvation
say evermore, “God is great!”
5 But I am poor and needy;
hasten to me, O God!
You are my help and my deliverer;
O Lord, do not delay!
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: Jim and Ann Reeher
Song
Heaven’s Gift (CRC #46)
When far from God and lost in sin
I took God’s book and looked within,
I found a gift from heaven’s throne,
a righteousness from God made known
That gift Christ won at dreadful cost:
propitiation for the lost.
My substitute, condemned he died,
and turned God’s wrath from me aside.
Now in Christ’s righteousness alone
I stand before God’s awesome throne,
and grasp what only God could do:
be just and justifier too
Christ paid the price to set me free:
his blood poured out on Calvary’s tree.
Now nothing as my own I’ll call,
for all is Christ’s and Christ my all.
All merit, boasting set aside,
by faith alone I’m justified.
Before the throne I take my place
and rest in God’s amazing grace.
Song
All Praise to Christ (CRC #47)
To him who loved us long ago,
before we came to be,
who left his throne for earth below
to save a wretch like me:
All praise to Christ from grateful men
forevermore. Amen.
To him who freed us from our sin
by dying on the cross,
to make us whole without, within,
redeemed from dreadful loss:
All praise to Christ from grateful men
forevermore. Amen.
To him who comes arrayed in light,
when sinners here shall see
the one they pierced and mourn the sight—
God promised; it shall be!
All praise to Christ from grateful men
forevermore. Amen.
With angels, saints, and seraphim
the new creation sings,
“All glory, pow’r, and praise to him
who made us priests and kings.”
All praise to Christ from grateful men
forevermore. Amen.
The Lord’s Table
Christ Our Righteousness
Scripture Reading
Isaiah 10
Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees,
and the writers who keep writing oppression,
2 to turn aside the needy from justice
and to rob the poor of my people of their right,
that widows may be their spoil,
and that they may make the fatherless their prey!
3 What will you do on the day of punishment,
in the ruin that will come from afar?
To whom will you flee for help,
and where will you leave your wealth?
4 Nothing remains but to crouch among the prisoners
or fall among the slain.
For all this his anger has not turned away,
and his hand is stretched out still.
5 Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger;
the staff in their hands is my fury!
6 Against a godless nation I send him,
and against the people of my wrath I command him,
to take spoil and seize plunder,
and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
7 But he does not so intend,
and his heart does not so think;
but it is in his heart to destroy,
and to cut off nations not a few;
8 for he says:
“Are not my commanders all kings?
9 Is not Calno like Carchemish?
Is not Hamath like Arpad?
Is not Samaria like Damascus?
10 As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols,
whose carved images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria,
11 shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols
as I have done to Samaria and her images?”
12 When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he[a] will punish the speech[b] of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes. 13 For he says:
“By the strength of my hand I have done it,
and by my wisdom, for I have understanding;
I remove the boundaries of peoples,
and plunder their treasures;
like a bull I bring down those who sit on thrones.
14 My hand has found like a nest
the wealth of the peoples;
and as one gathers eggs that have been forsaken,
so I have gathered all the earth;
and there was none that moved a wing
or opened the mouth or chirped.”
15 Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it,
or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?
As if a rod should wield him who lifts it,
or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood!
16 Therefore the Lord God of hosts
will send wasting sickness among his stout warriors,
and under his glory a burning will be kindled,
like the burning of fire.
17 The light of Israel will become a fire,
and his Holy One a flame,
and it will burn and devour
his thorns and briers in one day.
18 The glory of his forest and of his fruitful land
the Lord will destroy, both soul and body,
and it will be as when a sick man wastes away.
19 The remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few
that a child can write them down.
20 In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. 21 A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.22 For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness. 23 For the Lord God of hosts will make a full end, as decreed, in the midst of all the earth.
24 Therefore thus says the Lord God of hosts: “O my people, who dwell in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrians when they strike with the rod and lift up their staff against you as the Egyptians did. 25 For in a very little while my fury will come to an end, and my anger will be directed to their destruction. 26 And the Lord of hosts will wield against them a whip, as when he struck Midian at the rock of Oreb. And his staff will be over the sea, and he will lift it as he did in Egypt. 27 And in that day his burden will depart from your shoulder, and his yoke from your neck; and the yoke will be broken because of the fat.”[c]
28 He has come to Aiath;
he has passed through Migron;
at Michmash he stores his baggage;
29 they have crossed over the pass;
at Geba they lodge for the night;
Ramah trembles;
Gibeah of Saul has fled.
30 Cry aloud, O daughter of Gallim!
Give attention, O Laishah!
O poor Anathoth!
31 Madmenah is in flight;
the inhabitants of Gebim flee for safety.
32 This very day he will halt at Nob;
he will shake his fist
at the mount of the daughter of Zion,
the hill of Jerusalem.
33 Behold, the Lord God of hosts
will lop the boughs with terrifying power;
the great in height will be hewn down,
and the lofty will be brought low.
34 He will cut down the thickets of the forest with an axe,
and Lebanon will fall by the Majestic One.
Preaching the Word
What Does Christ’s Church Look Like?
Zephaniah 3:12-13
But I will leave in your midst
a people humble and lowly.
They shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord,
13 those who are left in Israel;
they shall do no injustice
and speak no lies,
nor shall there be found in their mouth
a deceitful tongue.
For they shall graze and lie down,
and none shall make them afraid.”
Closing Song
Christ is Made the Sure Foundation (TH #342)
1 Christ is made the sure foundation,
Christ the head and cornerstone,
chosen of the Lord and precious,
binding all the church in one;
holy Zion’s help forever
and her confidence alone.
2 All that dedicated city,
dearly loved of God on high,
in exultant jubilation
pours perpetual melody;
God the One in Three adoring
in glad hymns eternally.
3 To this temple, where we call thee,
come, O Lord of hosts today:
with thy wonted loving-kindness
hear thy people as they pray;
and thy fullest benediction
shed within its walls alway.
4 Here vouchsafe to all thy servants
what they ask of thee to gain,
what they gain from thee forever
with the blessed to retain,
and hereafter in thy glory
evermore with thee to reign.
5 Laud and honor to the Father,
laud and honor to the Son,
laud and honor to the Spirit,
ever Three and ever One,
One in might, and One in glory,
while unending ages run.