Sermon by Brandon Clements for July 12, 2020.
Here is this week's sermon along with a digital worship guide that will include songs to sing, prayers, and scripture to read. Also, for those with children, please use our Kidtown guide as a resource to teach and lead your children each week.
Worship Guide
July 12th, 2020
Use this guide as a script, and, if possible, ask for a volunteer, roommate, or virtual participant to read the parts aloud. There are links to the songs to play and sing along with or, sing them a cappella. We want this to be a helpful guide for you and your community to participate together in worshipping the Lord.
We invite you to stand as you sing, to help position yourself to be engaged and focused as you participate in the gathering of God’s people.
Call to Worship
Have someone read this scripture aloud to begin:
Psalm 100
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
Serve the Lord with gladness!
Come into his presence with singing!
Know that the Lord, he is God!
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!
For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.
Song
Practice: Lament
Have someone read this aloud:
Psalm 13:1-4
How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long will I store up anxious concerns within me,
agony in my mind every day?
How long will my enemy dominate me?
Consider me and answer, Lord my God.
Restore brightness to my eyes;
otherwise, I will sleep in death.
My enemy will say, “I have triumphed over him,”
and my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
The world is broken. Things are not the way they should be, and we can talk to God about that. In Psalm 13, David is reckoning with how things are broken in his life, and he brings those things honestly to God. Following in David’s form, let’s take a couple minutes to lament in prayer to God the things that we’re sad, angry, or confused about.
(Take 2 minutes to pray silently)
Have someone pray this to close: Lord, have mercy on us. Lead us through Your word and Spirit to trust you.
Amen
Read Scripture and Pray for the Sermon:
Have someone read this scripture aloud and pray
1 Peter 2:9-12
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 as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage 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.
Lord, open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit, that we may hear your Word with joy. Amen.
Sermon
Reflection: Trust & Follow
Psalm 13:5-6
But I have trusted in your faithful love;
my heart will rejoice in your deliverance.
I will sing to the Lord
because he has treated me generously.
Just as David recognized the brokenness in his life and the world around him, he turned in the Psalm to trust God and sing. As we reflect on God’s word and sing, let’s remember that in the midst of all the brokenness, we can trust in God’s faithful love and believe that He will one day make everything right.
Song
Benediction
Help us, Lord, that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts, and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.