Sin

17 September: Liturgy + Set List

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  • GRAVES INTO GARDENS

    Call to Worship: Romans 11:33-12:2

    All we do is give back to God what always has been His. We live in response to the mercy and grace of God by offering our lives as an act of worship. Part of what we do as we gather is reorient our lives around responding to the mercy and grace of God. Let’s do that together as we sing:

  • ALL I HAVE IS CHRIST

  • HOLY IS OUR GOD

    Sermon: Mark 10:1-12

    Scripture says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Some of us have sin that is loud and obvious, all of us have sin that is subtle and subversive and deep in our hearts. As we continue in worship, we’re going to confess our sins to God and one another:

    Book of Common Prayer Corporate Confession

    Now that we have confessed our sins to God and one another, I want to give you a few moments of silence to consider and confess your own sins.

Brothers and sisters hear the good news: The Lord who loves you says in His word: Go and sin no more.

  • HOLY FOREVER

  • LAMB OF GOD

    Benediction

March 1: Tuesday Refocus

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‘…never spare a little sin.’ - J.C. Ryle

We are prone to overlook, avoid, and justify.

It is easy to shrug in the direction of quiet, little sins.  It takes both humility and courage to pray with the Psalmist: ‘Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!’ (Psalm 139:23-24).

The Apostle Paul was no stranger to his own sin - both great and small - he called himself the chief of sinners (1 Tim 1:15), confessing that he does not do what he wants to do, but does the very thing he hates (Rom 7:15).  And yet, it is this former persecutor of the Church who says that it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance (Phil 3:6, Rom 2:4).  Repentance requires that we must acknowledge our sins - small and great, the wrong things we have done, the right things we have failed to do, sins of omission and commission, those things are known to us, and those things that are still hidden.  Even here, maybe even especially here, we experience the kindness of God that leads us toward repentance - turning away from our sin and turning toward Christ.

Lord, as we enter this season of Lent, would you give us the courage and humility of the Psalmist, so that we might experience your kindness toward us as we see our sin, and experience Your grace?  In Jesus’ name, amen.

Praying,

AB 

February 22: Tuesday Refocus

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‘For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.’ - Thomas Merton

Truth understood intellectually, becomes embodied through experience.  We can cognitively understand and grasp truths with our mind, but our desire should be to declare like the Psalmist - ‘…Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.’ (Psalm 139:14).  This is understanding not just at the level of the mind, but at the very center of our being.

Lent begins in two weeks.  A season of introspection and reflection before the celebration and joy of Easter.  The spiritual disciple of fasting has traditionally accompanied the season of Lent.  And one of the things that fasting can do is expose the gaps between our intellectual understanding (God is good), and our lived reality (God is good, my soul knows it very well).  With the Psalmist we may declare intellectually ‘…there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You (Psalm 73:25).’ But as we give up and go without our functional saviors - as Tim Keller has called them - are exposed.  Those things that we desire to give us value, significance, comfort, and worth.  Yet this too is a gift - the chance to confess, turn to God and move our intellectual, hearsay understanding of God, to embodied reality.

God, in your kindness, would You expose the areas of our lives where we grasp the truths of Your character intellectually but live as though we do not believe?  Might we know Your goodness and Your kindness not by hearsay but by our everyday walk with You?  In Christ’s name, amen.

Learning,

AB

Responding To Current Events

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We know that part of living in a fallen world is experiencing pain and suffering. We feel the weight, and taste the bitterness of sin every day. But what about the days when we are deeply aware of the brokenness of the world, and we are more conscious of our own fragility? Natural disasters, national tragedies, global crises, and local upheaval - every one of those are the results of the fall. Even in the past several years, we have seen outcries against police brutality, racism, sexism, sexual abuse, political unrest, and COVID-19. What role does the corporate worship gathering play in speaking to, and addressing current events in the world?

If we acknowledge that the corporate worship gathering is formative, we must see the chance to engage with current events as an opportunity to form, and counter-form our people to look at the world biblically. The rate at which we consume information about current events from social media, the news, our relationships, and are filtered through our own experience can feel dizzying. And if sin has distorted, warped and broken everyone and everything - that would also include our minds - which may lead us to feel anxiety and fear, anger and rage, apathy and indifference, or chaos and disconnection. Like a loving parent, like a Good Shepherd with a non-anxious presence, I believe that the corporate gathering should be a place where we acknowledge the reality of the world, while inviting people to lift their eyes to the Maker of heaven and earth who does not slumber or sleep. And in this way, point to the peace that passes all understanding, the Prince of Peace - Jesus Christ.

When it comes to responding to current events in the corporate gathering, the first step is to respond. Because when we do not respond to the obvious pain, brokenness, and suffering in our world, our nation, our states, our cities, or in our congregation we are subtly communicating that the corporate worship gathering is disconnected from the rest of life. We are saying that what we do in this room, has no bearing on who we are meant to be when we are sent out.

Give people language. When I think about having ‘the talk’ with my children, I do not want them to learn about sex from the internet, their friends, or their school. I want my wife and me to give them language, shape their framework, and form their understanding. I believe the same is true with current events in the gathering: we want to shape our people more than they are being shaped by the world. By giving them an understanding which helps them make sense of a senseless world, through the Gospel, and through Scripture.

Prepare in advance. This could mean conversations ahead of time about how you will respond in the service - what are the tipping points for you body? At what point do you acknowledge, at what point do you change songs, at what point does the entire service look different than you had planned? But being prepared also means forming people before tragedy. It means connecting the corporate gathering to everyday life, so that when it is time to engage a specific tragedy in the gathering, there is a language for pain, familiarity with lament, prayer, trusting in the sovereignty of God, and seeing the world biblically.

Give space. Maybe there needs to be a time of quiet personal prayer, or guided reflection in the service. Perhaps you should make volunteers available to pray and process with people after the gathering. What kind of communication, training, and equipping do you need to provide for community group leaders to lovingly shepherd and care for those they serve? There can be many questions that accompany grief and loss, and processing those realities does not have a neat timeline, or endpoint. We have a responsibility to loving lead, not hurry people through pain, and tragedy.

Ultimately, we cannot prepare for everything. We are as sinful and broken as the world, and we will pass over opportunities to speak to current events that may hurt and wound some of our people. And we may choose to engage some current events that anger and frustrate others. But in all things, let us be aware of the formative power of the corporate gathering, and the formative power of engaging with - or not - current events of the world.