::: Worship Study Guide for Nov 18 2012
::: Order of Worship
::: Sermon Audio
image : The Veteran in a New Field, Winslow Homer (1865)
Preparation for Worship
“There is no mechanical solution to true spirituality or the true Christian life. Anything that has the mark of the mechanical is a mistake. It is not possible to say, ‘Read so many of the chapters of the Bible every day, and you will have this much sanctification.’ It is not possible to say, ‘Pray so long every day, and you will have a certain amount of sanctification.’ It is not possible to add the two together and to say, ‘You will have this big a piece of sanctification.’ This is a purely mechanical solution, and it denies the whole Christian position. For the fact is that the Christian life, true spirituality, can never have a mechanical solution. The real solution is being cast up into the moment-by-moment communion, personal communion with God Himself, and letting Christ’s truth flow through me through the agency of the Holy Spirit.”
Francis Schaeffer
Call to Worship Isaiah 55:10-12
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is My word that goes out from My mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
::: In Tenderness (W. Spencer Walton, 1894)
audio / chart / history
Membership & Baptism
The Ministry of Prayer
::: He Loves Us (David Crowder)
New Testament Reading I Corinthians 2:4-10
My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
We Confess Our Sin Together
Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, forgive us. Instead of being separated from the world, we coddle our secret sins. Instead of hearing Your Word, we are shaped by every other voice, belief, and perspective. Instead of eagerly following You in Your mission to the world, we choose sheltered and self-focused lives. Lord Jesus, Son of the Living God, have mercy on us. Our only hope is in Your finished work. You lived the life we should have lived. You died the death we should have died: in our place, as our substitute, to make atonement for our sins.
God Declares Our Forgiveness Ephesians 2:12-13
Remember that you were once separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
::: Creator of the Stars (7th Century Latin Hymn)
audio / chart
Sermon Mark 4:1-20
1 Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. 2 And he was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: 3 “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. 5 Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. 6 And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. 8 And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.” 9 And he said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
10 And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. 11 And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, 12 so that
“they may indeed see but not perceive,
and may indeed hear but not understand,
lest they should turn and be forgiven.”
13 And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? 14 The sower sows the word. 15 And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. 16 And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. 17 And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. 18 And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, 19 but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. 20 But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”