Preparing For Worship: August 2nd

This week we are excited to hear from one of our elders: Darren Utley. He will be preaching from God's Word this week, as Pastor Todd and his family get away on vacation. Next week we'll welcome Joe Keller, dean of students at The Master's College, as our guest speaker for the morning. I'll be heading out Monday night to attend the Worship God Conference put on by Sovereign Grace ministries out in Maryland. My brother, Donny, will be leading worship on August 9th for me. Lots of fun stuff going on!

This week is also the first Sunday of the month, which means we'll celebrate the Lord's Supper together, and partake of the Bread and the Cup in symbolic remembrance of Jesus' sacrifice for us on the cross.

We'll start the service with "Beautiful One" as we focus in on our glorious God. This is one of those songs that describes a physical response to the beauty and character of God: "the beauty of Your majesty awakes my heart to sing...Beautiful One I love...I adore...my soul MUST sing!" Psalm 95 and 96 are wonderful commandments to lift our voices to the Lord in praise:

"Oh come, let us sing to the Lord;

let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;

let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise..."

"Oh sing to the Lord a new song' sing to the Lord, all the earth!

Sing to the Lord, bless his name' tell of his salvation from day to day.

Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!

For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods..."

So come ready to obey and play your part in our "choir" of worship! After our first song, Darren will welcome everyone, lead us in prayer for the morning, and dismiss us to greet each other, and to welcome new visitors.

Then we'll sing the new (it's really quite old) hymn we're gonna learn together: "Crown Him With Many Crowns." Click the song title to go to my previous post with a video of the song and all the lyrics. We'll go right out of that song into "In Christ Alone" which brings the glorious majesty of God into full focus in the person of his son: Jesus Christ. As believers, when we think about the love, justice, mercy, forgiveness, and grace of God, we can't help but be pointed and drawn back to Jesus. He is the culmination and pinnacle of all of those characteristics of God; and that gives us great joy and hope!

Then Darren will come and preach to us from Joshua 10:1-15, and build off of Pastor Todd's sermon from last week. If you didn't get a chance to hear it. CLICK HERE and give it a listen!

We'll transition to a time of sharing the Lord's Supper, and we'll sing "Jesus Messiah" as we pass the elements and meditate on the price he paid for our redemption. Darren will come up again and lead us all as we take it together.

We'll close our time with "Lord Jehovah" as we commit to live our lives bowed before the throne of God bringing him glory and honor and praise in all that we do.

That's what's happening on Sunday; hope to see you there!