:::  Download the 3.31.2013 Worship Study Guide

:::  Download the 3.31.2013 Bulletin

:::  Download the 3.31.2013 WepcKids Parent Bulletin

:::  Listen to the 3.31.2013 Sermon

image  ::  Sunrise with a Boat between Headlands, William Turner (English,1840)

Preparation for Worship on Easter Sunday  ::: Resurrection

O for an overcoming faith
To cheer my dying hours;
To triumph o’er the monster Death,
And all his frightful powers!

Joyful with all the strength I have
My quiv’ring lips should sing-
Where is thy boasted vict’ry, Grave?
And where the monster’s sting?

If sin be pardoned, I’m secure,
Death hath no sting beside;
The law gives sin its damning power;
But Christ, my ransom, died.

Now to the God of victory
Immortal thanks be paid,
Who makes us conquerors while we die,
Through Christ our living head.

Isaac Watts, “Hymn 17: Victory Over Death”, I Corinthians 15:55ff

Call to Worship

Good Christian Men Rejoice and Sing!

 “I lay down My life for the sheep.”  John 10:15; Cyril A. Alington, 1931; tune: Bullock

Song of Adoration

Christ the Lord is Risen Today

“O Death, where are your plagues?”  Hosea 13:14; Charles Wesley, 1739; tune: Easter Hymn

Old Testament Reading ::: from Psalm 118

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.  In my anguish I cried to the Lord, and he answered by setting me free.  The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?  The Lord is with me; he is my helper.  I will look in triumph on my enemies.  I was pushed back and about to fall, but the Lord helped me.  The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.  Shouts of joy and victory resound in the tents of the righteous: ‘The Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!  The Lord’s right hand is lifted high; the Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!’  I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done.

We Confess Our Sin Together

Our gracious Father, You sent Your Son to die and rise to new life in order that death might be destroyed and that we might live. We confess that we have often chosen death over life and lived as if Jesus has not been raised. In our thoughts, words, and deeds we have rebelled against You.  We have fled from You, Whose love is better than life and Whom to know is Life itself. We have sinned against others, sometimes unintentionally and sometimes deliberately, and have diminished their lives. We have damaged ourselves who were created to reflect Your beauty. Father, forgive us our sin for Jesus’ sake. Give us grace to live as followers of our risen Lord, Jesus Christ. To the glory of Your holy name. Amen.

Words of Encouragement :::  I Peter 1:3; II Corinthians 5:17

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

Sermon :::  Mark 12:1-27

And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. ² When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. ³ And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. ⁴ Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. ⁵ And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed. ⁶ He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ⁷ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ ⁸ And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. ⁹ What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. ¹⁰ Have you not read this Scripture:

“‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
¹¹ this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

¹² And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away.

¹³ And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk. ¹⁴ And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” ¹⁵ But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” ¹⁶ And they brought one. And he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.” ¹⁷ Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they marveled at him.

¹⁸ And Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection. And they asked him a question, saying, ¹⁹ “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. ²⁰ There were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and when he died left no offspring. ²¹ And the second took her, and died, leaving no offspring. And the third likewise. ²² And the seven left no offspring. Last of all the woman also died. ²³ In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife.”

²⁴ Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God? ²⁵ For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. ²⁶ And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? ²⁷ He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong.”

Offering

Ave Verum Corpus

“Jesus met them…they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him.”  Matthew 28:9; 14^th Century Latin Hymn; tune: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1791

Songs of Praise

Doxology

“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.”  Psalm 150:6; Thomas Ken, 1709; tune: Lasst Uns Erfreuen

All Creatures Of Our God And King

“All You have made will praise You, O Lord.”  Psalm 145:10; Francis of Assisi, c.1225; tune: Lasst Uns Erfreuen

Crown Him With Many Crowns

“On His head were many crowns.”  Revelation 19:12; Matthew Bridges, 1851; tune: Diademata

Benediction

:::  Download the 3.24.2013 Worship Study Guide

:::  Download the 3.24.2013 Bulletin

:::  Download the 3.24.2013 WepcKids Parent Bulletin

:::  Listen to the 3.24.2013 Sermon

image  ::  Expulsion of the Money Changers, Stanley Spencer (British,1921)

Preparation for Worship  ::: Save

I am tangled up in contradiction.
I am strangled by my own two hands.
I am hunted by the hounds of addiction.
I have lied to everyone who trusts me.
I have tried to fall when I could stand.
I have only loved the ones who loves me.

O Hosanna!
See the long awaited king come to set his people free.
We cry, O Hosanna!
Come and tear the temple down.
Raise it up on holy ground.

Andrew Peterson

Call to Worship:  Zechariah 9:9-10,16-17

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is He, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

His rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.

On that day the LORD their God will save them, as the flock of His people; for like the jewels of a crown they shall shine on His land.

For how great is His goodness, and how great His beauty!

Song of Adoration  :::   O Worship The King (Robert Grant, 1833)

Song of Praise   ::: All Glory, Laud and Honor (Theodulf of Orléans, c.820) [bandcamp track=236522930  bgcol=FFFFFF linkcol=4285BB size=venti]

Sermon: Mark 11:1-33

Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples ² and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. ³ If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’” ⁴ And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. ⁵ And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” ⁶ And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go. ⁷ And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. ⁸ And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. ⁹ And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! ¹⁰ Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”

¹¹ And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

¹² On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. ¹³ And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. ¹⁴ And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.

¹⁵ And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. ¹⁶ And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. ¹⁷ And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” ¹⁸ And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. ¹⁹ And when evening came they went out of the city.

²⁰ As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. ²¹ And Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” ²² And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. ²³ Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. ²⁴ Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. ²⁵ And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

²⁷ And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him, ²⁸ and they said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?” ²⁹ Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. ³⁰ Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me.” ³¹ And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ ³² But shall we say, ‘From man’?”—they were afraid of the people, for they all held that John really was a prophet. ³³ So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

Song of Response  :::  Did Christ Over Sinners Weep (B. Beddome, 1799) [bandcamp track=3528043466  bgcol=FFFFFF linkcol=4285BB size=venti]

We Confess Our Sin Together

King of Glory, You came to us as true Peace in the midst of our warfare, as true Freedom to release us from our bondage to sin, as true Refuge while we languished in a chaos of our own design.  Though we know Jesus as Sovereign King, we have rebelled just as Israel did long ago, we have negotiated with the Enemy by our secret sins and proud skepticism, we have betrayed our Heavenly Father in our daily refusal of Peace, Freedom, and Refuge.  For our treason, You died; For our restoration, You rose again.  Draw us close to You in this week, that our eyes may catch the vision of Your tears, and our hearts, the wonder of Your grace.

Words of Encouragement: from Psalm 118

In my anguish I cried to the Lord; and He answered by setting me free. The Lord is with me. The Lord is my Strength and my Song; He has become my Salvation.

Song of Praise  ::: Upon a Life I Did Not Live (Horatius Bonar, 1881) [bandcamp track=196705242  bgcol=FFFFFF linkcol=4285BB size=venti]

Old Testament Reading: Isaiah 45:21-25

Declare what is to be, present it—
let them take counsel together.
Who foretold this long ago,
who declared it from the distant past?
Was it not I, the Lord?
And there is no God apart from me,
a righteous God and a Savior;
there is none but me.

“Turn to me and be saved,
all you ends of the earth;
for I am God, and there is no other.
By myself I have sworn,
my mouth has uttered in all integrity
a word that will not be revoked:
Before me every knee will bow;
by me every tongue will swear.
They will say of me, ‘In the Lord alone
are deliverance and strength.’”
All who have raged against him
will come to him and be put to shame.
But all the descendants of Israel
will find deliverance in the Lord
and will make their boast in him.

Songs of Praise  :::  All Things New (Horatius Bonar, 1846) [bandcamp track=2373436171  bgcol=FFFFFF linkcol=4285BB size=venti]

:::  Before the Throne of God Above (Charitie Lees Bancroft, 1841-1923) [bandcamp track=4120787669  bgcol=FFFFFF linkcol=4285BB size=venti]

Benediction