Preparing Your Heart for Worship - July 23, 2017
As we continue our study in Romans 9, be sure to be preparing your heart for our time together each week. Read through the suggestions below, and listen to the songs so that we you make the most of our time together.
Forever
We can confidently sing of the eternal love God has for us! What a great beginning to our time together - singing the words of Psalm 136, and following a Responsive Reading (which we have done very rarely in the past five years), we can joyfully celebrate the “foreverness” of God’s love for us. From eternity past and eternally into the future, God has loved us - what a joy to sing “His love endures forever!”
Behold Our God
As we consider not only His love for us, but also the many awesome attributes of our God, and as we think of the throne room of Heaven, how can we not come and adore, worship, and exalt Him?
Prayer of Praise
I love hearing men in our church leading us in praising God through prayer. This form of prayer is relatively new to our congregation, but the richness and depth of the prayers we’ve been hearing is so encouraging and what a joy to say “AMEN!” with them each week when we pray.
Worship through Giving
We must always remember that the act of giving our offerings to God is an act of worship. As we take the offering each week, use that time to reflect on all that God has given you and the joy it is to give back to Him.
Meditating on God’s Word
Pastor Steve Lawson once said, “If you want to hear God speak to you audibly, read the Bible out loud.” We’re also being obedient to Scripture when we read God’s Word publicly. As the Scripture is read this week, try to simply focus your mind and heart on hearing God’s Word as it is read aloud.
Pastoral Prayer of Petition
As we turn our thoughts back to the Lord and prepare to praise Him, we tune our minds and hearts to His amazing grace and declare together our desire to hear from Him.
Glorious Christ
The words of this song truly capture my heart. I’ve really enjoyed singing this song congregationally, and I love that the words echo in my mind throughout the week. If you haven’t added this to your playlist yet, you should! (the “acoustic version” in the video above is my favorite version of this song)
How Great Thou Art
What a great way to follow Glorious Christ! When we think about all He is and what He has done for us, how can we not respond by declaring His greatness?
Sermon: God’s Unchanging Plan - Romans 9:6-10
J.B. Phillips wrote his “New Testament in Modern English” in 1958 after many years studying and translating the New Testament from Greek into English. He says this of his translation, “I want above all to create in my readers the same emotionsa s the original writings evoked nearly 2,000 years ago.” He goes on to say that after many years of translating, with this writing he “felt I must curb my youthful enthusiasms and keep as close as I possibly could to the Greek text.
Here is his translation of Romans 9:6-13:
Now this does not mean that God’s word to israel has failed. For you cannot count all “Israelites” as the true Israel of God. Nor can all of Abraham’s descendants be considered truly children of Abraham. The promise was that “in Isaac shall thy children be called.” That means that it is not the natural descendants who are children of God, but that the children of the promise are to be considered truly Abraham’s children. For this was the promise: “About this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son.” And then, again, a word of promise came to Rebecca, at the time when she was pregnant with two children by the one man, Isaac our forefather. It came before the children were born or had done anything good or bad, plainly showing that God’s act of choice has nothing do to with achievements, but is entirely a matter of his will. She was told:
The elder shall serve the younger.
And we get a later endorsement of this in the words:
Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.
As you prepare your heart for our time together, read through the passage several times in different translations.
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
What a wonderful reminder this song is. We can be confident and secure in a God with whom “there is no shadow of turning with Thee. Thou changest not, Thy compasssions they fail not.”
I am so grateful that our God does not change. That His perfect plan is unalterable.
P.S. - there's another really cool version of this song on iTunes. Click here.
Deacon Flock Fellowships
What a joy it is to spend time with others in fellowship! One thing I’ve always loved about our church is that we truly enjoy being together! Whether it’s a small group studying Scripture together, or the all-church picnic we have each Fall, any time a group of members are together - it’s clear that everyone loves
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 God would stir in you a passion to know Him, obey Him, and make Him known. When we are all moving toward that end, we will become a “fired up Body of Believers...”
• Pray for me as I prepare to preach God’s inerrant Word
Rob
