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A NOTE FROM PASTOR MARK:
We recognize that family worship has its unique challenges depending on your family’s size and stage of life. Therefore, we have prepared a complete worship service (below) for our entire church family because we are convinced that Sunday is so much more than a sermon. And this is one way for us to be worshiping the same way even though we are apart.
We suggest that you test the worship and sermon links before you gather your family. After you have done this, we encourage the leader of the house to read the prayers and appoint other readers as necessary to encourage greatest participation.
After the sermon is over, we encourage you to discuss the sermon and ways to live out its application.
Song lyrics are available to download. (Click here for lyric sheets)
I Am A Creature
TEXT: PSALM 8
ONLINE WORSHIP SERVICE (4.26.2020)
CALL TO WORSHIP:
As we come to worship our great God during this difficult season, let us rejoice that he is a perfect refuge and our constant source of strength!
Psalms 46:1
1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.2 Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,3 though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.
OPENING WORSHIP:
“All Creatures of our God and King”
“How Great Thou Art”
Prayer:
Oh God we cannot help but declare your greatness as we scan the panorama of your awesome deeds. You who made the heavens in all their expanse. You who made the tiniest particles and building blocks of life! And you who put them all together to create such beauty and wonder! These things are too marvelous for us.
Yet the way you have acted to save fallen men and women is far greater! You chose to give your Son and not withhold him (Romans 8:32), placing on him the punishment we deserve (Isaiah 53:5). What kind of a God would come to save rebels? Has anyone heard of this kind of love? As the song said, “My burden gladly bearing you bled and died to take away my sin!” Truly as we look at how you saved us, we declare “you have done marvelous things” (Psalm 98:1).
We now stand in the wake of your deliverance, waiting for final salvation (1 Peter 1:3–4). The end has not yet come. We are still suffering the effects of our sin. Our world is groaning in the pains of childbirth (Romans 8:22).
We pray for help!! We are struggling!! We are daily faced with uncertainty regarding the future. We are forced to wait to leave our homes, with little or nothing we can do about it. And each day we are again reminded how much we miss the sweetness of interaction with our fellow believers. Oh Lord, send your help! Encourage the faint hearted, lift up the weak! Calm our fears and restlessness. Turn our eyes toward eternal things, things that will outlast this temporary crisis.
As the song we just sang reminds us, we await your second coming, when you will finally triumph over all obstacles to our everlasting joy. Instead of placing our hope here in our jobs, our bank accounts, our comfortable weekly rhythms and normal activities, we chose to “set our hope fully on the grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13).
Thank you that like a strong and faithful shepherd you rescued us when we were helpless sheep, wondering away from you (Isaiah 53:6). We were lost in the filth of our sins. We celebrate now that you are the good shepherd who came to lay down his life so that he could wash us from our sin and make us clean (John 10:11, Ephesians 5:26)!
Worship:
“Jesus Paid It All”
AFFIRMATION:
Jesus has washed us white as snow! Let’s celebrate together how firm and unshakable his salvation and love truly are:
Romans 8:28-39 (ESV)
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.
34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
WORSHIP:
“A Mighty Fortress ”
This new song reminds us of God’s great power and holiness, his justice and his unshakable reign. Yet it also highlights his incomprehensible love for his own people. This means God is an impenetrable fortress for his people to run to, no matter how shaky life’s circumstances….
Prayer:
Father, we know that when we run to you we find the security that we are looking for. Would you now help us as we turn to your Word? Please open our eyes to the sweetness of having Christ as our all in all. Cause us to see what secure footing we have as we build our lives on the person and work of Jesus Christ. Make us content to find ourselves forever united with him, enjoying the fruits of his sacrificial labor for us. Amen.
READ SERMON TEXT:
Psalm 8
SERMON:
Pastor Mark Kernan
I Am A Creature
Main Point: You will never find your “true identity” until you grasp your utter dependency.
Outline:
I. The Majesty of God (Psalm 8:1; 9)
II. The Beauty of the Universe (Psalm 8:3)
III. The Question of Man (Psalm 8:4–8)
CLOSING WORSHIP:
“Sovereign Over Us”