As the pilgrims made their way up to Jerusalem and as the city came into view, they reflected on the City and the Kingdom – both present and promised – it represented:

Unless the Lord build the house, those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain –
it is vain to rise up early and go to rest late reaping the fruit of anxious toil, for it is the Lord who gives rest to the ones he loves!
– Psalm 127

By Jesus Christ’s life, death, resurrection and ascension, the Lord himself is building the house – a worldwide dwelling of the living God by his Spirit to the praise of his glory. Come and behold the wonder of it all – the length, breadth, depth, and height of God’s glorious love in Jesus Christ displayed in the gathering of the redeemed. — and let us dance and worship, confess and praise with abandon before the throne, the only reasonable behavior for those who have beheld the holiness and grace of the living God through Jesus Christ building a worldwide house of living stones.

Order of Worship for 06.14.09

Isaac Watts reflects on the strange and sublime beauty of the gathering of saints:

How sweet and awesome is the place with Christ within the doors, while everlasting love displays the choicest of her stores.

How sweet, that is, and “filling-with-awe” is that place where Christ has gathered together with his redeemed. The sweetness and awe grows as Watts guides our eyes over the gathering which causes us to wonder: “Why is he a part of this gathering? Why is she a part of this gathering? Hey, wait a minute, why am I a part of this gathering?!” And it slowly dawns on us: this is amazing, I SHOULDN’T be a part of this gathering, but here I am – and here she is, and here he is! …

… and we find ourselves being silenced in a sweet awe of the amazing mercy of our Father God poured out upon us in Jesus. May the number of this strange and beautiful gathering increase that your glory may shine.

Come together, then, with rejoicing and let us worship the Lord by whom we have received overflowing mercy for life – that the world may know the reality of our hope as the reality of their hope!

Order of Worship for 06.07.09

Paul’s revolutionary message was a simple and, in the day, virtually unnoticed event, registering as barely a blip on the screen of epoch-making events: the death and resurrection of Jesus by which our own victory over death has been secured!

Behold! I tell you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. …

Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

I Corinthians 15

It was for this message – and the historic reality to which it bore witness – that Paul was accused of “turning the world upside down.” A message for which he was executed.

As those who, in Jesus, have been placed upright in an upside down world by the surprising reversal of death, let us come together to worship! Let us come together for that revolutionary and dangerously simple task of worship and so bear witness before a wondering and wandering world to the reality of the resurrection that continues to ripple through the world in the Body of the living Jesus.

Order of Worship for 05.31.09

Since, by our place in Christ by the abounding grace and mercy of God our Father, we have been delivered from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his Son’s marvelous light, being carried with him, as it were, through our baptism into him, through death and into the glorious light of his resurrection, Paul prays that we would be strengthened to comprehend with all the saints the breadth, length, height, and depth of the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge so that we may be increasingly filled with the fullness of God’s goodness and grace and righteousness, filled with the knowledge of his will according to the wisdom and understanding of his Spirit.

Why would he pray that? Is he interested, simply, that those who have believed upon the Lord Jesus through the ministry of Paul would prove themselves to be highly educated and refined theologians so that he would win the “Apostle of the Year” award?

No. Since Paul knows that we were saved and are being built together into the new Temple by God’s grace in Jesus Christ in order to do the Good Works of his redemptive mission in Christ, Paul is praying that we know the abounding, boundless love of Christ so that we may increasingly walk and bear fruit in every good work in a manner that is worthy to be identified with the Christ of such love.

The principal “Good Work” to which such knowledge gives rise is the irresistible compulsion to worship, along with all the saints, before the throne of grace, singing out,

Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!

and

Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created!

and

Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.

So, then, let us come and join our voices together with all the saints in offering worship to our King, Jesus, the Lamb who was slain and so bear witness in a dead world to its Living Hope.

Order of Worship for 05.24.09

How has the reality of the resurrection been rippling through your world and your circumstances in the last week. Take a moment to identify it.

Then understand the Psalmist’s call to worship as he, too, has been reflecting on the life-giving, life-sustaining faithfulness of our God’s glory and grace:

Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy!
For the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth.
He subdued peoples under us, and nations under our feet.
He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob whom he loves.
God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet!
Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises!
Psalm 47

Considering the reality of the resurrection as it has been rippling through your life, sowing seeds of contentment and sustaining lives of hope, then come and let us join our voices together with the voice of the Psalmist – and all the saints gathered in Christ before the throne of grace – and let us clap our hands and shout to God with songs of joy!

Order of Worship for 05.17.09

The Psalmist teaches us to sing:

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;
God will help her when morning dawns.
The nations rage, the kingdoms totter, he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Come, behold the works of the Lord,
how he has brought desolations on the earth.
He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the chariots with fire.
Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!
The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Psalm 46

Stop. Consider – the river whose streams make glad the city of God, resting in the midst of the nations and trembling mountains, has burst its banks in Jesus Christ and continues to flow throughout the world, bringing life, health, peace; joy in the presence of God, abundance among the followers of Jesus. What Ezekiel foresaw and what the Psalmist celebrates is the resurrection reality that continues to resonate among God’s people in Jesus throughout all creation.

Come, then, let us worship.

Order of Worship for 05.10.09

In his letter to the Romans, Paul carefully presents the truth of the gospel that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, was buried, and rose again the third day and lives and reigns today. In contrast to the Greek and Roman instinct that such a message is absurd and folly in the extreme, Paul declares that the fact of the resurrection – and the declaration of that fact – is not only not foolish, but is the very power and wisdom of the creator God!

As he begins to draw some conclusions, Paul states, so, “… if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” (Romans 8:10-11) If the resurrection is true at all, it is true for every circumstance! It is upon that unchanging basis, then, that Henry Lyte leads us to sing out:

Soul then know thy full salvation; rise o’er sin, and fear, and care;
Joy to find in every station something still to do or bear:
Think what Spirit dwells within thee; what a Father’s smile is thine;
What a Savior died to win thee, child of heaven, shouldst thou repine?

Come, then, those who once were dead but now, in Christ, have been raised to new life together with Christ, let us gather together as the Living among the dead and let us worship! Let us witness together through songs, and hymns, and spiritual songs to the ongoing reality of the resurrection and the hope that is certified to us by it!

Order of Worship for 05.03.09

Like Paul who, many years later, opened his letter to the Ephesians with an uncontrolled explosion of praise, the Psalmist shouts out -

Shout for joy to God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise! Say to God, ‘How awesome are your deeds!’

The Psalmist’s exhileration at the knowledge of the glory of God displayed in his mighty and beautiful works explodes beyond his own ability to adequately express. Indeed, beyond the ability of his family and friends; even beyond the ability of his whole nation to adequately express – his only hope is to shout out to all the earth so that when all the voices of the earth have joined together to sing, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, the whole earth is full of your glory!’ this might come close to adequately giving expression to the wonder of it all.

As you turn your attention to gathering together to worship with those who have been made alive and washed clean by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, consider the awesome deeds of your Father God.

Then ‘come and see what God has done.’ Come, and bear witness – to one another and a world in desperate need to know – to the marvelous things our God continues to do by his risen and reigning Son, Jesus, our living King.

Order of Worship for 04.26.09

Jesus of Nazareth has been raised from the dead! Everything that went into the tomb, came out by the powerful work of God’s grace! By the same grace, Jesus has ascended, received the crown and sat upon the throne at the right hand of God the Father, from where he reigns supreme over all things.

Now what?

“Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away the judgments against you; he has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil.

The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who saves; he rejoices over you with gladness; he quiets you by his love; he exults over you with loud singing!”

Come, then, those who have been rescued, granted relief from what oppresses you, and been restored to real joy and hope; come, then, those over whom our God rejoices and exults with great pleasure as those he has redeemed and washed clean by the blood of his Son, Jesus. Come, then, and let us worship and fellowship and serve together to the praise of our God’s glory in Jesus Christ!

Order of Worship for 04.19.09

Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended, that man to judge thee hath in hate pretended?
By foes derided, by thine own rejected, O most afflicted.

Who was the guilty who brought this upon thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee.
‘Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee: I crucified thee.

And so it is that we have seen Jesus nailed to the cross – not because of anything HE had done, but for what WE have done. As Isaiah had said of the Servant, “he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed,” Paul reiterated to the saints in Corinth: “For our sake [the Father] made [Jesus] to be sin, who knew no sin …”

And it was in that state – bearing our sins – that Jesus dies upon the cross.

————————————————-

Reflect on that and anticipate, then, the joy that is ours when we arrive at church on Sunday to see the risen Jesus: “Greetings! Welcome to a whole new reality – nothing remains the same from this time forward!”

In the anticipation of that joy let us come and worship, Christ the Lord, the risen King!

Order of Worship – 04.12.09 – Easter Sunday