Our Awesome Assurance in Christ!

Preparing Your Heart for Worship - June 4, 2017

One of the main points in last week’s message (you can watch it here if you weren’t able to be with us) was that everything that happens in our lives, whether we would call it “good” or “bad,” is going to be used by God for our ultimate good. We might not always understand it, but we can be confident that God is in control and that He is working for His glory and our good.

Blessed Be Your Name

The book of Job is usually considered to be the first book written in the Old Testament. I find it very encouraging that, from the beginning, we’re taught how to deal with the trials and struggles of life. This song, inspired by Job 1:21 is a beautiful way to begin our time of worshiping the Lord. We all face difficulty and suffering in our lives, we’ll begin our time together declaring that we will worship God in the midst of whatever we are going through. 

10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)

There truly are far more than 10,000 reasons to worship God. The blessings that He pours out on us on a daily basis - every day - every time the sun comes up - give us reason after reason after reason to worship Him. The song says, “For all Your goodness I will keep on singing. Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find.” God is good. All the time. 

Prayer of Praise

Even though there is one person leading us in this prayer, we can all join in as he’s praying. This is a wonderful opportunity for us to praise the Lord together, quietly, as we’re led into the throneroom. Remember: our hearty “AMEN!” at the end of the prayer is how we, collectively, say, “I agree!!!” 

Worship through Giving

We should never forget that giving of not just our time and talents, but also of our resources is an act of worship. Whether you give weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly - use this time to meditate on all that God has blessed you with resource-wise and your commitment to give back to him. 

Meditating on God’s Word

We’ll hear directly from God as His Word is read. God desires for us to simply hear His Word read when we gather for worship. Let this element of our worship gathering do as the old hymn says “tune my heart to sing Thy praise.” 

Pastoral Prayer of Petition

What a joy and privilege it is to not just pray for you throughout the week, but to come before the Lord, on behalf of the assembled Body, and pray. I’m truly honored and humbled to be your pastor. I love praying for our church in our worship gathering!

How Firm a Foundation

Again, this song lays out God’s Word as the foundation for our assurance. Whether sickness, health, poverty, wealth, at home, abroad, short days, or long days, we look to God’s Word for it is in His excellent Word that we find the foundation of our faith. God has spoken! What a joy to sing about this.  

Blessed Assurance

Since this song provided the title for the message this week, how can we not sing it?  “Watching and waiting looking above, filled with His goodness, lost in His love.” What a beautiful expression of our attitude - always looking toward heaven! (the video is a fun bluegrass version of the song - not how we'll do it on Sunday, LOL!)

Sermon: Blessed Assurance, part 2 - Romans 8:28-30

While verse 28 tells us that no matter what we’re going through, God is right in the middle of it - working it for our ultimate good, the next two verses show us both the purpose of our salvation (sanctification) and the progress of our salvation (based on God’s choosing us and reaching it’s fullness in our glorification). Again, what a blessing to see God’s faithfulness in working not just the details of our lives, but the entire timeline of history to our good and His glory. 

As you prepare for our time together, Read through Romans 8:18-30 several times this week and, looking at verses 29-30, think through these questions:

• What does it mean to be “conformed to the image of His Son?”

• What are the five primary terms that stand out in these two verses?

• What is the meaning of each of these words?

• The word “glorified” is a past tense word used for a future event. Why is that? 

• Ultimately, what does these verses teach us about our hope/assurance in Christ?

Great Is Thy Faithfulness

Great is Thy faithfulness

O God my Father

There is no shadow

Of turning with Thee

Thou changest not

Thy compassions they fail not

As Thou hast been

Thou forever wilt be

What a deep and abiding comfort this is!

Is Genesis History

Don’t forget that we’ll be watching the film “Is Genesis History” for two consecutive Sundays, June 4 and June 11 in our evening service. This film will equip you to not only understand the truth of a literal six day creation, but help you to defend the truth of Genesis in a culture that desperately wants to deny it. 

As always, be in prayer for:

• Rex and all those who lead the music in our time together.

• Pray that we all come together on Sunday with hearts prepared to engage in intense, focused exaltation of God. 

• Pray that we demonstrate holiness, unity, and love in both our personal lives as well as together as the Body.

• Pray for me as I prepare to preach God’s inerrant Word!

I’m truly looking forward, as I do each week, to our time together as the Body. What a joy and privilege is it to be able to gather together as brothers and sisters in Christ and exalt our Lord together. 

Rob

P.S. - In the next couple of weeks, we'll be learning a new song. This song has some amazing lyrics that extol the awesomeness of Christ in a great way - I'm really looking forward to singing this song together as a family. If you have a few minutes, listen to it a time or two ahead of time: