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, but also the readings and prayers from our liturgy. You can find links 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.
Photo courtesy Matt Herp from Sojourn Midtown.
Prelude: Warrior written by our Dave Moisan, Neil Robins and me, inspired by Isaac Watts’s “Psalm 21.” We recorded this song on Over The Grave: The Hymns of Isaac Watts, Volume One.
Call to Worship
Imagine if one day, you opened your mailbox and found an invitation to a banquet with the mayor and the city’s top officials. For most of us, we’d wonder, “What did I do to deserve this?” It’s not normal to be welcomed by people of power and prestige for no reason at all. The gospel of Jesus is just such an invitation. But that invitation is different than those we see in the world. Jesus invites us not because we’ve measured up to a certain standard or because of a certain status that we carry. He invites us as we are–messed up sinners in need of a rescuer.
He came into the very world he created, but the world…that’s us… didn’t recognize him. He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. We are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.
-John 1:10-13
Song: Come Ye Sinners written by Joseph Hart and our Brooks Ritter.
Confession
We just finished singing: “All the fitness He [the Lord] requires is to feel your need of Him”
God doesn’t tell us to do work for forgiveness. He’s done the work and just asks us to come before Him as we are…in need of Him alone.
Knowing that He accepts us as we are, let’s take a moment and silently acknowledge our sins to God.
SILENCE
Hear the word of the Lord:
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak, and justified when you judge. -Psalm 51:1-4
Let this next song be a confession and a prayer that God would expose even the hidden ways that we sin. Let’s remember God’s grace in our confession–that His light not only exposes our sins, but cleanses us from them.
Song: Shine Into Our Night
Assurance:
The light of God’s mercy shines into our hearts, and the darkness scatters. Hear the word of the Lord:
We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him.
We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. So let us also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.
-Romans 6:6-11
Amen! Let’s sing to the God who saved us!
Song: Our God
Peace:
The cross of Jesus is always the theme that shows us what true peace is about. It is God’s tool to both reconcile and unite His people. Let’s remember this as we welcome one another today.
Giving
Then our preacher taught from 1 Titus 1:5-9, on the role of elders in the life of a church. You can hear Sojourn sermons in theSojourn Church iTunes podcast or in the Sermon Resource library at sojournchurch.com.
Song: When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
Reading
Hear the Word of the Lord, describing the Savior we worship:
God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son he created the universe. The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven. This shows that the Son is far greater than the angels, just as the name God gave him is greater than their names.
Hebrews 1:2-4
Song: Approach My Soul the Mercy Seat by our Jamie Barnes, from the double EP The War/The Mercy Seat.
Song: Your Great Name
Benediction: Go following the footsteps of the Good Shepherd, the Warrior King, Jesus Christ, who leads us, victoriously, into the very presence of God. Go in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Peace be with you.
