Tabernacle Presbyterian Church (PCA)

For a snowy day (or any day!), see the attached file for “house church” time this Sunday.

Service for a Snowy Day

 Soul, adorn yourself with gladness, leave the gloomy haunts of sadness,
Come into the daylight’s splendor, there with joy your praises render.
Bless the One whose grace unbounded, this amazing banquet founded;
He, though heav’nly, high, and holy, deigns to dwell with you most lowly.
                                —Johann Franck, 1649 (trans. Catherine Winkworth, 1858) 

Moses’ call recounts the deep disruptive seizure of a man for whom neither previous faith nor personal endowment played a role in preparing him for his vocation. 
                                —Brevard Childs

 ~~~

Greetings, members and friends of Tabernacle!

God calls us to worship Him. 

Try it this way:  God calls us to worship Him.

Corporate or Public Worship has often been described as a dialogue between us (the congregation) and God.  In many ways this is true, but this is no ordinary dialogue. Imagine Moses, tending the sheep of Jethro, his father-in-law. He’s in the desert, minding his own business, when he comes upon the strange sight of a bush which is burning but does not burn up.  And from within the bush, God calls to him.  Moses responds, and the Lord tells him not to come any closer and to take off his sandals because he was standing on holy ground.

No ordinary dialogue, the interaction between God and Moses.

This Sunday as we continue our series of sermons on worship titled Re:forming Worship, we’re looking at the way that our worship of the high and holy God begins with His call to us.  In Psalm 100 the Lord not only calls us, but also gives us direction on how we are to respond:

Psalm 100

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness;
            come before Him with joyful songs.
Know that the Lord is God.
It is He who made us, and we are His;
            we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.
Enter His gates with thanksgiving and
            His courts with praise;
give thanks to Him and praise His name.
For the Lord is good and His love endures forever;
His faithfulness continues through all generations.

We respond singing a hymn which is filled with reminders that we are indeed on holy ground, because God has condescended to dwell with us as we worship.

God Himself Is with Us

1.  God Himself is with us: let us now adore Him,
and with awe appear before Him.
God is in His temple—all within keep silent,
prostrate lie with deepest rev’rence.
Him alone God we own,
Him, our God and Savior;
praise His name forever. 

The first verse is a picture of our worship of the high and holy God who is transcendent (beyond the limits of ordinary experience- for example, Moses and the burning bush!).  The worship response toward such a God is one of prostrating oneself in the dust.  

2.  God Himself is with us: hear the harps resounding!
See the crowds the throne surrounding!
“Holy, holy, holy”—hear the hymn ascending,
angels, saints, their voices blending!
Bow Thine ear to us here:
hear, O Christ, the praises
that Thy church now raises.

Verse two is a picture of worship in heaven, with crowds of angels surrounding the throne in heaven and singing words which Scripture tells us are sung in heaven.  But we also ask Christ to hear us, as we add our worship here in earth to the praises in heaven.

 3.  O Thou fount of blessing, purify my spirit;
trusting only in Thy merit,
like the holy angels who behold Thy glory,
 may I ceaselessly adore Thee,
and in all, great and small,
seek to do most nearly
what Thou lovest dearly. 

Words: Gerhard Tersteegen, 1729
Music: Joachim Neander, 1680

In the third verse, we ask Christ, the fount of all blessing, to purify us, so that we- trusting in His merit- might ceaselessly adore the Lord like the angels above who see Him as He is.  And our response to such worship would be that in everything that we do- the big things and the little things- that our heart’s desire would be to do what the Lord loves.  This is the joyful obedience which comes through faith.  And in this third verse, as we sing it together, we are indeed singing about the way that worship transforms us and restores our sanity.

In the Lord’s great love for us, worship is not a burdensome thing.  The Westminster Shorter Catechism reminds us that we are called to live lives of worship which are filled with the enjoyment and delight of God:

Question:   What is the chief end of man?
Answer:     Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. 

This enjoyment of God is magnified when we begin to understand the magnitude of grace- when we realize how great our sin is in the face of this transcendent God, and the wonder of His mercy to us in Christ in redeeming us to be His worshipers. 

Thy mercy, my God, is the theme of my song,
the joy of my heart and the boast of my tongue.
Thy free grace alone, from the first to the last,
hath won my affections and bound my soul fast.
                                                (from “thy Mercy, My God” by John Stoker, 1776)

In worship, the Lord feeds us and transforms us through His holy Word- and we respond to Him in joyful singing- for He  has called us… 

Let us love and sing and wonder,
 let us praise the Savior’s name!
He has hushed the law’s loud thunder,
 he has quenched Mount Sinai’s flame
He has washed us with his blood,
 he has brought us nigh to God. 

Let us love the Lord who bought us,
 pitied us when enemies,
Called us by his grace, and taught us,
 gave us ears and gave us eyes:
He has washed us with his blood,
 he presents our souls to God.

…and we continually add our praise to the worship in heaven: 

Let us praise, and join the chorus
of the saints enthroned on high;
Here they trusted him before us,
 now their praises fill the sky:
“Thou hast washed us with thy blood;
 Thou art worthy, Lamb of God!” 

John Newton, 1774

May great joy in the Lord be ours this Sunday and always!

Blessings,
John

John Bennetch, Director of Worship
Tabernacle Presbyterian Church

Worship Notes is a weekly newsletter of Tabernacle Presbyterian Church which discusses a few elements of the coming Lord’s Day Worship service to encourage preparation for corporate worship.

(Copyrighted texts printed by permission, CCLI #2339955)

I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

                                                -The Apostle Paul (Philippians 1:20-21)

“Edmund Hill comments that the psalm’s first point is to praise God continually; its second is ‘Never trust the politicians… for any sort of political, social, national, or individual salvation. Not because they are more treacherous of fickle than other men, but simply because they are like other men – they will die, and their plans and policies and panaceas with them.””

                                                -John Goldingay quoting Edmund Hill

~~~

Greetings, members and friends of Tabernacle!

This Sunday as we continue our summer series of messages titled The Heart in Worship in the Book of Psalms, we will be looking at Psalm 146 as Essen and Rick preach on Hope.

I’m struck at how familiar the words of Psalm 146 are to us, and I must confess I have to smile at the reason why this is so.  The hymn  Hallelujah, Praise Jehovah, O My Soul is one that we sing often and well.  This text, from the 1912 Psalter, has found a home in our hearts.  It begins and ends in praise, but the psalm is largely an exhortation to us to put our trust in God alone.

Hallelujah, Praise Jehovah, O My Soul

Hallelujah, praise Jehovah,
O my soul, Jehovah praise;
I will sing the glorious praises
of my God through all my days.
Put no confidence in princes,
nor for help on man depend;
he shall die, to dust returning,
and his purposes shall end.

(In verse 1, we sing the exhortation NOT to trust in civil government and the leaders )

Happy is the man that chooses
Israel’s God to be his aid;
he is blessed whose hope of blessing
on the Lord his God is stayed.
Heaven and earth the Lord created,
seas and all that they contain;
he delivers from oppression,
righteousness he will maintain.

(Verse 2 is a reminder of the blessings that are ours as the Lord’s people and of the Lord’s blessing of the oppressed and his promise to establish righteousness and justice.)

Food he daily gives the hungry,
sets the mourning prisoner free,
raises those bowed down with anguish,
makes the sightless eye to see.
Well Jehovah loves the righteous,
and the stranger he befriends,
helps the fatherless and widow,
judgment on the wicked sends.

(In Verse 3 we sing of the Lord providing for all of our needs, releasing prisoners, and healing those who are sick- all of these are kingdom truths from Luke 4:16-21:

¹⁶He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. ¹⁷The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
 ¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
      because he has anointed me
      to preach good news to the poor.
   He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
      and recovery of sight for the blind,
   to release the oppressed,
    ¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”      )

Hallelujah, praise Jehovah,
O my soul, Jehovah praise;
I will sing the glorious praises
of my God through all my days.
Over all God reigns for ever,
through all ages he is king;
unto him, your  God, O Zion,
joyful hallelujahs sing.

(In verse 4, we hail Him as our eternal King)

The joyous, celebratory tune was derived by the famous Presbyterian organist and music educator Lowell Mason from a Gregorian chant.  The tune is a traditional form known as rounded bar form  which simply means that there are three phrases of the tune which are identical; an aid to focusing on the text rather than the music.

This Sunday, as Essen and Rick preach on Hope, we will be learning a new song together- a text written by Stuart Townend titled There is a Hope.

There is a hope that burns within my heart,
That gives me strength for ev’ry passing day;
a glimpse of glory now revealed in meager part,
Yet drives all doubt away:
I stand in Christ, with sins forgiv’n;
and Christ in me, the hope of heav’n!
My highest calling and my deepest joy,
to make His will my home.

There is a hope that lifts my weary head,
A consolation strong against despair,
That when the world has plunged me in its deepest pit,
I find the Savior there!
Through present sufferings, future’s fear,
He whispers, “Courage!” in my ear.
For I am safe in everlasting arms,
And they will lead me home.

There is a hope that stands the test of time,
That lifts my eyes beyond the beckoning grave,
To see the matchless beauty of a day divine
When I behold His face!
When sufferings cease and sorrows die,
and every longing satisfied,
then joy unspeakable will flood my soul,
For I am truly home.

by Stuart Townend and Mark Edwards
Copyright (c) 2007 Thankyou Music.

I’ve been waiting for just the right time to introduce this hymn- it has been set to a rather involved tune which has a yearning sort of quality to it- which , I think matches the yearning that we have for a world which is not broken, corrupt,  and pain-filled.  (You can hear it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyMWBx6vvJo)

As we worship, we give thanks for God’s love and care for us, and our hope is renewed by confessing our faith in him, by praying to Him with our brothers and sisters, and by hearing the preaching of His Word.  But God, in his love for us through Christ, has not used only these senses to communicate his grace to us.  He has also given us the sacraments; “holy ordinances wherein…the benefits of the new covenant are represented, sealed, and applied to believers.”  (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 92.)

And as we respond in thanks to this great grace we have received and are receiving, we sing of the hope that we find in Christ alone:

In Christ alone my hope is found,

He is my light, my strength, my song;

This Cornerstone, this solid Ground,

Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.

What heights of love, what depths of peace,

When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!

My Comforter, my All in All,

Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone! – Who took on flesh,

Fullness of God in helpless babe!

This gift of love and righteousness,

Scorned by the ones He came to save:

Till on that cross as Jesus died,

The wrath of God was satisfied –

For every sin on Him was laid;

Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,

Light of the world by darkness slain:

Then bursting forth in glorious Day

Up from the grave He rose again!

And as He stands in victory

Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me,

For I am His and He is mine –

Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,

This is the power of Christ in me;

From life’s first cry to final breath,

Jesus commands my destiny.

No power of hell, no scheme of man,

Can ever pluck me from His hand;

Till He returns or calls me home,

Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand!

Words by Stuart Townend; Music by Keith Getty

©2001 Kingsway’s Thankyou Music

May the hope of Christ transform and renew us as we worship together this Sunday!

Blessings,

John

John Bennetch, Director of Worship

Tabernacle Presbyterian Church

Worship Notes is a weekly newsletter of Tabernacle Presbyterian Church which discusses a few elements of the coming Lord’s Day Worship service to encourage preparation for corporate worship.

 (Copyrighted texts printed by permission, CCLI #2339955