We ask God to make the Scripture fresh, encouraging, and convicting to us as we sit under its ministry.
From Psalm 50
Gracious God and Mighty Father, you summon us to listen, and you promise not to be silent. Even if it convicts us and causes us grief, speak your truth to our hearts. Uncover our hidden idols. Reveal the ways in which we need to make amends to those we’ve wronged. Show us how our Savior has done all that we could not do, for our sake. Give us all that we need, spiritually, so that we are fully equipped to fulfill all our vows to you–in singular devotion and loyalty to you, and in the honoring and serving of your image in our neighbor. In your Son’s name. Amen.
We reflect on the Psalm of the Day and use it to examine our hearts and minds, leading us to confession of our sin.
Psalm 50 speaks of our God as the not-silent one (3) who summons all creation (4) to be his witnesses as he judges his people with righteousness. It’s kind of a terrifying experience. God brings charges against Israel. They are very active in sacrifices and public worship (8), but they don’t seem to be genuinely calling upon the Lord in their trouble (15), or offering honest thanksgiving to him (14). Some of them seem to have a distant and cold relationship to him: they despise his discipline (17). And there is no justice in their community: they allow thieves to continue stealing (18).
God’s case against his people is that they lack a true understanding of who he is, and so they lack a heart for his own justice and they lack the humility to give him thanks (23).
When we are cold toward the Lord; when we are distant from his heart, we quickly turn into people whose worship might be superficially enthusiastic but inauthentic. We become tolerant of theft and other lawlessness.
We need an honest reckoning with who God is, and the salvation he offers in Jesus, if we are going to be a community that offers real praise and lives of real holiness to the glory of his name.
Let us confess our sin.
Take a moment to reflect and to confess your sins silently before the Lord.
Kyrie
Nathan Clark George (2013)
Musical Notation (PDF, see 2nd Page)
Lord, have mercy (Lord, have mercy)
Christ, have mercy (Christ, have mercy)
Lord, have mercy (Lord, have mercy)
Upon us
Dear Friends in Christ, it is a terrifying thing when God summons the creation to witness and confronts us for our cold-hearted worship and our injustice. When God does not keep silence, it means that we have to hear truth.
And yet, when God speaks most clearly, it is a word not of judgment and condemnation, but of grace, mercy, and peace. As verse 2 says: out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth. When he spoke most clearly, it was in the radiance and beauty of his Son’s perfect life, lived for us. His perfect life given up for us–a sacrifice infinitely better than bulls and goats. God judges his people. But if his people are in Christ, then his people belong to his covenant of grace, sealed by Jesus’ sacrifice. And in Christ, we, his people, are declared to be his faithful ones.
For the sake of Jesus, your good God pardons you and renews you. Let us rejoice, for he has shown us his salvation! Amen!
Jesus Loves Me, This I Know
Text: Anna Bartlett Warner (1859)
Tune: William Batchelder Bradbury (1861)
Musical Notation
Jesus loves me! This I know,
For the Bible tells me so;
Little ones to Him belong;
They are weak, but He is strong.
Refrain
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
The Bible tells me so.
Jesus loves me! This I know,
As He loved so long ago,
Taking children on His knee,
Saying, “Let them come to Me.” (Refrain)
During our current series, our New Testament lessons are selected to complement the study of the Ten Commandments.
James 5:1-6
5 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. 2 Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. 4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. 5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.