Writing to encourage, equip, and exhort Christ-ian believers “dispersed” throughout Asia minor, confused and discouraged as a persecuted minority; treated as sojourners and exiles in their own land by their own families and friends by virtue of their identification with Jesus, the Christ, Peter says:

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you [therefore] as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” (I Peter 2:9-12)

Did you see that: we are chosen, sanctified, and “put to use” as God’s public proclamation, as a public display, of His “excellencies”! It is in response to lives of holiness, lives that are “honorable,” lives of deeds that conform to the “good” character of God by the Spirit of God because of the Son of God that the Gentiles will glorify God – whether sooner or later. The primary “good deed” by which we manifest the excellent glory, grace, justice, mercy, goodness of God is the True and Spirit-ual Worship to which we are called together through Jesus Christ – and it is from this primary good deed, done in Truth and Spirit by faith, that all other “good deeds” naturally and necessarily flow for the praise of his glory.

May we prepare and come together by faith, in reliance upon the Grace of his living Spirit, to worship him (and no other) and so glorify him (and no other) before a world of shattered idols and fading dreams.

File: Order of Worship for May 27, 2007

The Creator God is about the perfect, complete restoration of his right, just, merciful, good, and holy reign over and throughout all creation by and for his Son, Jesus Christ. This is the scope and focus of God’s revealed plan of redemption: in Jesus Christ, the Word of creation and redemption made flesh, all things were made, and in Him all things find their rightful place and rightful function and hold together.

At the center of God’s restoration of all things in Jesus Christ, is the restoration of His image in mankind, the crown of creation, the image which was shattered and continues to be shattered by mankind’s profound addiction to building his own kingdom, for his own glory, by the power of his own righteousness. According the rich bounty of God’s merciful character, the Word of his Grace in Jesus Christ confronts mankind – every person, race, tribe, nation; Jew and Gentile; rich and poor; red, yellow, brown, black and white; educated and uneducated; simpleton and wise — to reveal the death of his own wisdom and to show the way to Truth and Life through Jesus Christ.

The heartbeat of this mankind newly minted in Jesus Christ is worship. In worship, the blood of Jesus Christ pulses and quickens the new mankind for every aspect of Life in the world. As we gather together as a community of the New Humanity in Jesus Christ, we display in microcosm the Right Order of the New Creation: an Order that is established by the gracious initiative and effective Call of the Creator God; that acknowledges our habit of rebellion; God’s gracious and habitual faithfulness to re-call, restore, and forgive through Christ; His generous provision to secure and nourish his People in Christ, his Torah-made-flesh, equipping them, clothing them, and sending them in the Light of the Living Christ, to portray and proclaim throughout his Kingdom, all Creation, that he is Lord of All and that True Life, Joy, and Hope is found in reconciled worship of the Living God through Jesus Christ alone.

In short, as we gather on Sunday mornings as a particular community of God’s New Humanity in Jesus Christ, we learn how to “order” and do all of life as the New Humanity coram deo, before the face of the Living, Gracious, Compassionate, Just and Holy God of all Creation.

May we gather in awe that by God’s amazing grace in Jesus Christ we – even this bunch at CVPC – have been made living images of the glorious creator God through Jesus Christ. That the world may know, and Live.

File: Order of Worship for May 20, 2007

It is by grace that we are saved, by grace that we are secured and equipped for lives of righteousness, lives of conformity to Jesus Christ – as husbands, wives; parents, children; managers, employees; neighbors and friends …

As we gather to worship together, may we come proclaiming the Truth of God’s grace: that we are sinners, desperately addicted to providing for our own protection and security for the display of our own glory, surprisingly – even astoundingly – broken of our addiction to ourselves and freed to worship and serve the living God through Jesus Christ.

File: Order of Service for May 13, 2007

Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name;
make known his deeds among the peoples!
Sing to him, sing praises to him;
tell of all his wondrous works!
Glory in his holy name;
let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!
– Psalm 105!

Psalm 105, a remembrance Psalm, encourages God’s people to “Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works!” Longman say, “Psalms of remembrance are those in which God’s past acts of redemption are the focus of attention.” He goes on to say that no where in the Bible is history given for the sole purpose of historical information. Rather, God’s acts are recounted so that his people might give praise.

As we come together each week, we come not to simply tell each other humorous, frustrating, or amazing stories of the past week but to give testimony to God’s ongoing, covenantal acts of steadfast love and redemption in and through our lives.

As we prepare to gather this week, please come prepared to edify and encourage God’s people with accounts of his ongoing wonderful works among his people for the display of his glory.

Similarly, please be prayerfully sharing one another’s burdens in prayer:

** CVPC Family: that we would have eyes to see the wonderful work our Lord is doing among us as he fulfills his promises of peace from generation to generation for the ongoing display of his glory;
** CVPC Family: that we would have the eyes and ears of our faith opened to see the people to whom the Living Lord has sent us and the circumstances into which he has set us as lights of his salvation; and having seen and heard, we would have courage by faith to walk in obedience and to recount to a desperately hungry and thirsty world the wonderful deeds of the Living God displayed through the Living King Jesus and his people according to the call of the gospel.

File: Order of Worship for May 6, 2007