Call To Worship
We confess the supremacy of God in Christ through both responsive reading and song.
Our Spoken Call to Worship
From Psalm 71:17-21 (ESV)
O God, from my youth you have taught me,
and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
MEN: So even to old age and gray hairs,
O God, do not forsake me,
until I proclaim your might to another generation,
your power to all those to come.
WOMEN: Your righteousness, O God,
reaches the high heavens.
You who have done great things,
O God, who is like you?
You who have made me see many troubles and calamities
will revive me again;
from the depths of the earth
you will bring me up again.
You will increase my greatness
and comfort me again.
Our Sung Call to Worship
10,000 Reasons (Bless The Lord)
Confession
We confess our need for mercy through both responsive reading and song.
Our Spoken Confession
From Isaiah 53:3; John 11:33-35; Mark 14:34, 36; Luke 10:25-37; Romans 8; Galatians 6
Father of All Mercies,
We confess that we have not been faithful
stewards of sorrow.
Jesus was a “man of sorrows.”
Yet we despise sorrow and avoid sorrowful people.
Jesus was “acquainted with grief.”
Yet we esteem grief as nothing of value,
as something from which we should hide our faces.
Jesus saw his friends weeping and was deeply moved in spirit and greatly troubled.
Yet we grow merely uncomfortable with weeping.
In the place of compassion, we rush to quick fixes.
Jesus wept.
Yet we apologize for our tears and are too proud to weep.
Jesus said, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.”
Yet we rebuke such a condition as sin and unbelieving.
The Scripture says, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
Yet when we see our neighbor lying wounded on the road,
we pass by on the other side,
afraid that carrying another’s burden will leave us
unable to carry our own—
forgetting that we have a Savior,
who never leaves or forsakes us, and your Spirit,
who groans with us until the day
that we are raised from the dead.
TIME OF SILENT CONFESSION
Our Sung Confession
Abide With Me
Assurance and Peace
We profess our assurance of salvation and peace in Christ through both responsive reading and song.
Remember the Gospel
From Heidelberg Catechism, Q & A 1
What is your only comfort in life and death?
That I am not my own, but belong—
body and soul,
in life and death—
to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood,
and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.
He also watches over me in such a way
that not a hair can fall from my head
without the will of my Father in heaven;
In fact, all things must work together for my salvation.
Because I belong to him,
Christ, by his Holy Spirit,
assures me of eternal life
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready
from now on to live for him.
Our Sung Profession of Assurance
Before the Throne of God Above
In Christ Alone
Thanksgiving and Petition
We Give Thanks in Prayer and Offer Petitions to God
We express our gratitude to God our Father for Christ’s work on the cross for us and bring our requests before him. In bringing our requests, we confess that we believe God truly is a good father, who cares about our needs and gives us what he knows is best.
We Give Thanks by Giving
We give financial offerings to support the work of the church because of our gratitude to God. By giving we confess we are trusting in God’s provision for us as well.
On the first Sunday of each month we have two offerings—one for the general fund and a second one for the benevolence ministry of our church.
We Give Thanks in Song
On Jordan’s Stormy Banks
Scripture Reading
Lamentations 5:1-22 (ESV)
1 Remember, O LORD, what has befallen us;
look, and see our disgrace!
2 Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
our homes to foreigners.
3 We have become orphans, fatherless;
our mothers are like widows.
4 We must pay for the water we drink;
the wood we get must be bought.
5 Our pursuers are at our necks;
we are weary; we are given no rest.
6 We have given the hand to Egypt, and to Assyria,
to get bread enough.
7 Our fathers sinned, and are no more;
and we bear their iniquities.
8 Slaves rule over us;
there is none to deliver us from their hand.
9 We get our bread at the peril of our lives,
because of the sword in the wilderness.
10 Our skin is hot as an oven
with the burning heat of famine.
11 Women are raped in Zion,
young women in the towns of Judah.
12 Princes are hung up by their hands;
no respect is shown to the elders.
13 Young men are compelled to grind at the mill,
and boys stagger under loads of wood.
14 The old men have left the city gate,
the young men their music.
15 The joy of our hearts has ceased;
our dancing has been turned to mourning.
16 The crown has fallen from our head;
woe to us, for we have sinned!
17 For this our heart has become sick,
for these things our eyes have grown dim,
18 for Mount Zion which lies desolate;
jackals prowl over it.
19 But you, O LORD, reign forever;
your throne endures to all generations.
20 Why do you forget us forever,
why do you forsake us for so many days?
21 Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may be
restored!
Renew our days as of old—
22 unless you have utterly rejected us,
and you remain exceedingly angry with us.
Sermon
Lamentations 5:1-22 – I Am Weary Let Me Rest – Pastor Michael Felkins
Sending
Having heard and confessed the Gospel, we are sent into the world on mission in Christ, which we express in both song and spoken word.
Sending Song
He Will Hold Me Fast
Blessing
From 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 (ESV)
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely,
and may your whole spirit and soul and body
be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He who called us is faithful; he will surely do it.
Amen.