Psalms, Hymns & Spiritual Songs: Sojourn’s Liturgy Recap, 2.12.2012

Welcome to sojournmusic.com’s weekly worship music set list review & service recap.  You’ll not only read a list of the songs we led following the Call To Worship, but also the readings and prayers from our liturgy. You can find links to the to the set lists of this church and many other churches each week in the Worship Blog Carnival at theworshipcommunity.com. And you can learn about some of the songs we sing at Sojourn Gathered each week in advance of the Sunday service by reading my “Getting Ready For Sunday” post each Thursday at Sojourn’s online journal, TravelBlog.

Photos this week are courtesy of Tom Branch, from Sojourn Midtown.

Call to Worship
In most of our lives, we have to work hard to earn acceptance.
We work hard to be accepted in our workplace, school, etc.
The Gospel of God’s grace tells us that God accepts us not based upon our performance, but because of what Christ has done. When we gather on Sundays we can rejoice because we recognize that the pressure is off. Hear His word:

In Christ, we are God’s special possession, and are made to declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Once we were not a people, but now we are the people of God;
once we had not received mercy, but now we have received mercy. – adapted from 1 Peter 2:9-10

If God is gracious enough to call us out of our hopeless state, then we can now respond joyfully that we’ll follow Him.

Song: Invitation Fountain written by Michael Pritzl. The call-and-response nature of this song makes it work as a call to worship and as our response to the call to worship.

Confession
We come to God utterly dependent upon him for mercy.
Every time we pray, every time we worship, we have to confront our weakness.
Let’s pray together as we confess our sin:

Lord, we confess today that we have failed to follow you.
We try to cover up our sins or do enough good to erase our faults, yet our hearts are often hardened against you. When we try to fix ourselves rather than coming to you we neglect the power of the cross of Jesus.
Forgive us, Lord, for trying to manage our sin, rather than repenting of it.
Only you can change our sinful hearts.
Our weakness is great, but we know Christ’s strength is greater.

Help us in our weakness.
Amen.

Song: May Your Power Rest On Me written by Joel Gerdis and Neil Robins, based on Hymn 15 by Isaac Watts. Hear “May Your Power Rest On Me” in its entirety in our Over The Grave album page.

Song: Cling to the Crucified the anonymously written hymn text from Bonar’s Lyra Consolationis, arranged by Kevin Twit, who also wrote the melody.

Assurance/Peace
Hear how God has made us His people and has given us refuge:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. – Ephesians 1:3-8

God has made us his people, and we are called to love each other and welcome one another in as family. Let’s greet one another today.

Giving

Then our preacher preached a sermon from Genesis 17. This was the second of a two-part mini-series on God’s Covenant with Abraham, within our larger Genesis sermon series. You can hear Sojourn sermons in theSojourn Church iTunes podcast or in the Sermon Resource library at sojournchurch.com.

Song: All I Have Is Christ written by Jordan Kauflin. You can hear “All I Have Is Christ” by Sovereign Grace, and learn about it, here.

Reading
Once you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope. But now we have been united with Christ Jesus. Once we were far away from God, but now we have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ. – adapted from Ephesians 2:12-13

Song: In The Shadow of the Glorious Cross written by Brooks Ritter and Rebecca Elliott, recorded on our Before The Throne album. Listen to “In The Shadow of the Glorious Cross” here.

Song: Refuge written by Neil Robins, adapted from “Psalm 31, Pt. 1″ by Isaac Watts. Listen to “Refuge” in full here, on our Over The Grave page.

Benediction
Go, knowing that the Father has stamped you with a mark as His own by Jesus Christ and that the Holy Spirit works in you to reveal your marked identity.