Dear GBC Family, In this post you'll find what you need for an at-home time of worship. There are suggestions for scripture readings, hymns, prayers, and below you can find a pre-recorded sermon video. Of course, this can't replace our corporate gathering for worship, but I hope the time around common portions of God's Word will be a blessing and encouragement to us now, and we can look forward to when we can meet together again face to face. Since giving is part of what we do when we gather on the Lord's Day, if you are able to continue financially giving during this time (and we understand if you are not able!), we ask that you mail checks only (no cash) to our new P.O. Box: Grace Baptist Church of Warsaw P.O. Box 1383 Warsaw, IN 46581-1383 May God bless us all as we seek to honor him on his day! Here are a few suggestions on how to use these resources:
Prayer: Ask God to bless your time of worship and to bless others as they meet in their homes. Call to Worship/OT Scripture Reading: Psalm 103:1-22 - how should the love of God fuel our worship? Hymn: Praise to the Lord the Almighty (TH 50) - Piano track and lyrics; Congregational Version Hymn: Praise, my soul, the King of heaven (TH 70) - Piano track and lyrics; Congregational Version Scripture Memory: Jeremiah 9:23–24 – “Thus says the Lord: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.’” (ESV) Prayer: - Confess sin and rejoice in God's forgiveness; thank God for blessings; pray for our missionaries in Europe; pray that God would help you to receive the Word of God as it is preached; pray for other family needs and needs of others in the church; pray for the various needs related to the pandemic - the sick, those caring for the sick, the unemployed, the decision makers, efforts to slow it to be successful NT Scripture Reading: Romans 5:1-11 - what can you learn about God's love from these verses? Hymn: How Deep the Father's Love for Us- Instrumental with lyrics; Congregational Version (a capella from a pastors' conference) Preaching: See videos below Prayer and Benediction: Included in the video below. You may want to take a little time to talk about what you've heard. And don't forget to join our Skype prayer meeting tonight at 5pm. Watch for an invitation link in your email a few minutes before 5pm! You can find Trusting God Even when Life Hurts by Jerry Bridges on Amazon (available for Kindle) or Westminster Books. (Looks like a newer version has a different color than the one I show in the video.) Here are some of the elements of a Psalm of Lament:
Examples of Psalms of Lament: 3, 6, 12, 13, 22, 42-43, 54, 83, 142 (and others!) Dear GBC Family, In this post you'll find what you need for an at-home time of worship. There are suggestions for scripture readings, hymns, prayers, and below you can find a pre-recorded sermon video. Of course, this can't replace our corporate gathering for worship, but I hope the time around God's Word will be a blessing and encouragement to us now, and we can look forward to when we can meet together again face to face. Since giving is part of what we do when we gather on the Lord's Day, I'll include this reminder here. If you are able to continue financially giving during this time (and we understand if you are not able!), we ask that you mail checks only (no cash) to our new P.O. Box: Grace Baptist Church of Warsaw P.O. Box 1383 Warsaw, IN 46581-1383 May God bless us all as we seek to honor him on his day! Here are a few suggestions on how to use these resources:
Prayer: Ask God to bless your time of family or individual worship and to bless others as they meet in their homes. Call to Worship: Lamentations 3:19-26 - while there is no direct call to worship (e.g. Praise the Lord) in these verses, there is much reason for worship. You could maybe discuss what truths in these verses should cause us to worship God. Hymn: Great is Thy Faithfulness (TH 27) - Piano track and lyrics; Congregational Version Hymn: Our God Our Help in Ages Past (TH 26) - Piano track and lyrics; Congregational Version OT Scripture Reading: Psalm 90 Scripture Memory: Jeremiah 9:23–24 – “Thus says the Lord: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.’” (ESV) Prayer: - Confess sin and rejoice in God's forgiveness; thank God for blessings; pray for our missionaries affected by the novel coronavirus spread in their countries; pray that God would help you to receive the Word of God as it is preached; pray for other family needs or needs of others in the church NT Scripture Reading: Ephesians 1:1-14 Hymn: Whate'er My God Ordains is Right (TH 94) - Piano track and lyrics; Congregational Version (This is to a different tune, but it may be worth learning! Seriously, you should check it out.) Preaching: See video below Prayer and Benediction: Included in the video below. You may want to take a little time to talk about what you've heard. And don't forget to join our Skype prayer meeting tonight at 5pm. Watch for an invitation link in your email a few minutes before 5pm! 3/20/20203/18/20203/17/2020 I say in the video that I hadn't thought of the map of the world on my wall. Actually, I HAD thought about that being in the background. I had not thought of the children's song and the connection with the map until I was recording. 3/16/2020Early in Jesus' ministry, before John the Baptist was thrown in prison, there's a time when both Jesus and John are baptizing disciples but in different locations from each other. John's disciples are worried: "Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness-- look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him." (John 3:26) All? Well, not quite. A few verses before (John 3:23) you can read that John the Baptist is still baptizing. But more are going to Jesus now than John. (John 4:1-2)
Jesus is on the rise, John is on the decline, and his disciples are troubled. But not John. His goal all along has been to point his disciples to Jesus. Remember? "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" So how does he help his disciples work through their jealous fear of loss of influence? With a calm, level-headed, and (most importantly) humble analysis of the situation:
Having a platform is fine (really! John did!) as long as you use it to spotlight the Savior. But John the Baptist reminds us to hold that platform loosely. If you have it, it came from God. If you lose it or it decreases, that's from God too. Your platform should be all about Jesus anyway. Make sure your joy is in him, not in your influence. No one likes to see the best man hog the spotlight at the wedding. Proverbs 8 is the voice of Wisdom personified. In verse 34 she says, "Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors." In other words, Wisdom says we should listen to her daily. Since we find wisdom in the pages of Scripture (the Word of the all-wise God), if you want to listen to wisdom daily, read your Bible daily! I suspect if you're reading this, though, you're already convinced of that and maybe feel guilty about not doing so. But this post is more about the how-to of daily Bible intake. If you wan't more on why we should be doing it and Proverbs 8:34 in particular you can find a message I preached on it here.
I'm posting this well before January 1 in hopes that having a little time to plan will keep you from getting behind before you even get started. If you don't think about how to get in the Word on a daily basis until January 1 (and you want to start in the new year), you're already behind which gives you a reason to not bother starting at all. So why not think about it now so you're ready come January 1? Here are a few ideas that may help you. Not all of these apply to everyone and some may seem to contradict each other. Context is king; if the shoe fits, etc.
I hope you'll find your way into regular reading of the Word and find great blessing and encouragement and challenge in doing so. We have so, so much. It can blind us to people who have so, so little in places that are very different from here. That can be true of money, clothing, food, online shopping, two-day shipping, and on we could go. With such a vast array of resources at our fingertips, we might easily forget that it's not like this everywhere.
This is also true of spiritual resources like solid churches with faithful preaching, good Christian literature, and sound theological education. There are many countries in the world where such things are almost non-existent. Countries like Serbia. You can get McDonalds and KFC there, and there's a Starbucks coming soon, but the spiritual condition of this nation is dire. Genuine evangelical Christians make up a minuscule percentage of the population. Evangelical churches are for the most part weak and led by poorly trained or untrained pastors. Spiritual discernment is lacking. But over here, even if we know Serbia is a country and can find it on a map (which...can we?), we might not know or care about such realities. We have what we need, and so the spiritual plight of a little Balkan country thousands of miles away caries little concern for us. So it was for me before my friend (and my high school Sunday school church history teacher), Dwayne Baldwin, and his family went to Serbia to begin slowly, bit by bit, changing the spiritual landscape of a barren country. Dwayne, in partnership with Training Leaders International (TLI: Sending teachers. Training leaders. Strengthening the church.), is doing the slow, painstaking work of revitalizing the Baptist Theological School in Novi Sad, Serbia. The goal of the school: A new generation of Christ-focused leaders in the Balkans. I got to see all of this first hand earlier in the month on a trip with TLI to teach at BTS in Novi Sad. While we may be oblivious, surrounded by piles of excellent theological books and sound churches, thankfully others are more in tune to the deep needs in other places around the world and are doing good work to meet those needs. So what?
As my stress level began to rise on a morning perusal of facebook, twitter, and the latest news with everyone overreacting to everything, it occurred to me that the answer for the Christian in troubled times is the same as the answer for the Christian in calmer times. It's both boring and brilliant at the same time.
1 Thessalonians 4:10b-12 "...But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one." In the main, God has called his people to live ordinary lives, simply, diligently, consistently doing the work he has given them to do. What might that look like on an ordinary day?
How is that the antidote to the stressful times in which we live? It simply tells us what's next. We don't have to wonder. We don't have to worry about what's happening in Washington. Get up and do the next thing. How good of God to design us to work, to do, to be active, and to rest. He doesn't call us to days of emptiness and nothing to do except scroll through our devices and their never-ending stream of "urgent" news and notifications. He calls us to get up and do the work he's given us to do. The beautiful humdrum monotony of the very good day-to-day work God has called us to diverts our attention away from the things that tend to trouble us so. Pursue that with all of our hearts and we might just find we have more peace when turmoil rages all around. (You didn't hear me say Christians should be uniformed about current events. You didn't hear me say Christian's shouldn't be praying about troubling things in troubling times. You didn't here me say Christians can't use facebook and twitter. You didn't hear me say Christians can't or shouldn't engage in the public square. What did you hear me say? It's above. Feel free to read it again!) I have been preaching through the OT book of Proverbs at GBC. This week, I've been studying the tongue, the power of words, how we should speak, not speak, etc. And I am again reminded of just how current and relevant the Word of God is. Some would say the Bible is outdated and irrelevant. I contend just the opposite. Here's an example of why.
Try applying these Proverbs to social media and today's public discourse in general.
Outdated, irrelevant? Apparently not. We (including me) need this truth today! |
When I quote Scripture In this blog, unless otherwise indicated, the quotations are usually from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission.
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