:: Download the 11.23.2014 Worship Study Guide and Sermon Notes
:: Download the 11.23.2014 Bulletin
:: Download the 11.23.2014 Parent Bulletin
:: Download the 11.23.2014 Sermon Audio
image :: Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear, Vincent van Gogh (French, 1889)
Preparation for Worship :: Have You Not Heard?
“The Bible is one long story of God meeting our rebellion with His rescue, our sin with His salvation, our guilt with His grace, our badness with His goodness. The overwhelming focus of the Bible is not the work of the redeemed but the work of the Redeemer.” (Tullian Tchividjian)
“Man is further distant from God, than man from nothing. What a wonder is it, that two natures infinitely distant, should be more intimately united than anything in the world…That a God upon a throne should be an infant in a cradle. That the thundering Creator be a weeping babe and a suffering man. These are such expressions of mighty power, as well as condescending love, that they astonish men upon earth, and angels in heaven.” (Stephen Charnock)
Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs for November 23 include:
:: Before the Throne of God Above [bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=2750090749 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 artwork=none track=4120787669]
:: Behold Our God [bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=427149551 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 artwork=none track=4160179747]
:: How Firm a Foundation [bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=2872026018 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 artwork=none track=1854230214]
:: Why So Heavy, O My Soul? [bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=4275177237 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 artwork=none track=3977207874]
:: Help My Unbelief [bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=2144117063 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 artwork=none track=4060469677]
Call to Worship :: Romans 11:33-36
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor? Or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid?” For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen.
Confession of Sin :: based on Isaiah 30:15,18
Sovereign Lord, You said that in repentance and rest is our salvation, in quietness and trust is our strength, but we would have none of it. Yet You long to be gracious to us; You rise to show us compassion.
Words of Encouragement :: Romans 5:9-11
Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life!
Mission Update :: RvaChristmas.com
New Testament Reading :: II Corinthians 2:10,14-16
The Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God…The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Sermon :: Isaiah 40:12-31
12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
and marked off the heavens with a span,
enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure
and weighed the mountains in scales
and the hills in a balance?
13 Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord,
or what man shows him his counsel?
14 Whom did he consult,
and who made him understand?
Who taught him the path of justice,
and taught him knowledge,
and showed him the way of understanding?
15 Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
and are accounted as the dust on the scales;
behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.
16 Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,
nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.
17 All the nations are as nothing before him,
they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.
18 To whom then will you liken God,
or what likeness compare with him?
19 An idol! A craftsman casts it,
and a goldsmith overlays it with gold
and casts for it silver chains.
20 He who is too impoverished for an offering
chooses wood that will not rot;
he seeks out a skillful craftsman
to set up an idol that will not move.
21 Do you not know? Do you not hear?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
23 who brings princes to nothing,
and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.
24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows on them, and they wither,
and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
25 To whom then will you compare me,
that I should be like him? says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high and see:
who created these?
He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name,
by the greatness of his might,
and because he is strong in power
not one is missing.
27 Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
and my right is disregarded by my God”?
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30 Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.