Preparing for Worship: February 14th, 2010

How great that Valentine's Day falls on a Sunday this year!

How better to celebrate romantic love, than by praising and worshiping the One who created it and gave it to us??

I promise we won't go overboard with that though; I won't break out any of those "worship" songs that make it sound like Jesus is our boyfriend. I think having only one word for "love" in English makes it confusing when we think about how we are supposed to "love" Jesus. We tend to differentiate the types by saying we are "in love" when we mean the romantic, couple type of love, but sometimes even that phrase pops (or idea) up in worship tunes such as Matt Redman's tune "Let My Words Be Few" (Redman actually says he wishes he hadn't used that phrase in an interview HERE). "SO I'LL LET MY WORDS BE FEW: JESUS I AM SO IN LOVE WITH YOU"

The love we're supposed to have for our God/Jesus/Holy Spirit is a much more complex type of love that involves fear, awe, obedience, and sacrifice, in addition to those "warm fuzzies" you get sometimes (especially while singing worship songs!).

So yeah, we'll keep it biblical and rounded by placing God's glory, and not our feelings of love, as the highest priority. I'll save the phrase "in love" exclusively for my wife. :)

Glad we got that out of the way!

We're going to start our morning with "Ancient of Days" as we fulfill the very lyrics in the chorus by declaring God's glory and bowing at His throne in worship! If you don't have room to bow down where you are standing on Sunday, just be sure you have the attitude as one who bows! Or heck, just make your way to the aisle and bow down there; just be careful no one trips over ya!

Pastor Todd will come after that first tune and lead us all in prayer together, and then share some great ministry and outreach opportunities with us that are coming up really soon, so be sure you're at church on time so you can catch the vision for our Blanket Blessings ministry, and for Crossroads LIVE coming in April.

After those opportunities, we'll sing some more as we celebrate not just our love for God, but HIS love that captured us, and His grace that set us free when we sing: "Be Glorified." The bridge of that songs asks God to be glorified in US, and as John Piper says: "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him!" What better way to be satisfied in God than to have our hearts formed, our minds transformed, and our wills conformed to HIS good and perfect will?? I agree, so we'll ask that He do those things by singing "Take My Life (Holiness)."

Then Pastor Todd will come and continue teaching us God's Word from the apostle Paul's letter to the Ephesians. Specifically chapter four, verses 17 - 24. CLICK HERE to read the passage and prepare your own heart and mind to be changed by the truth of God's Word applied to your life by the Spirit of God that lives within you. It's about putting off the old self, and putting on the new self that God created to share in righteousness and holiness ("set-apartness").

After the sermon, we'll connect that knowledge to our hearts as we respond to God through song. The first tune after the sermon, I'm going to ask that you just let me share with you, and not sing with me (yet, maybe in the future!). It's a song I wrote just last week as I was contemplating the process of confessing our sins to the Lord. Being first grieved at our falling short of God's standards, and hating our sin so that we are eager to repent. Then we remember that we have the firm promise of Christ's blood shed for us so that we know that when God looks on us, he sees not our wretched sinfulness, but Christ's righteousness! And finally, we rejoice in our sure forgiveness, knowing that when we are faithful to confess our sins, He is righteous and just to forgive them (1 John 1:9)

So yeah, it's a song I wrote called "Confession Song" (I know, it's a VERY creative title!) and I hope that the Spirit will use it to both convict us and encourage us as we continue to strive DAILY to put off the old self and put on the new self as we confess our sins and seek after God.

We'll finish the morning by singing together about the reason we can even hope to have success in putting on the new self: God's grace. We'll sing "Grace Unmeasured" which reminds us that grace has paid for our sins, helps us do what is right, and will eventually lead us to our reward in heaven!

So that's what's going on this week! Hope to see you there, ready to worship, ready to encourage a brother or sister in the faith, and ready to watch the Spirit do his mighty work in our midst! Pray for God's will to be done!

See you there; happy prep!