The Gathering - Part Eighteen

Once again, we have stated that the purpose of corporate worship is . . . 

"to remember what God has done to bring us into relationship with Himself through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, to celebrate the communion that is now possible with God, to give attention to His word and to recommit to living within the grace of this covenantal relationship with God and each other."

     We want to spend the next few posts exploring the last section of this purpose statement. The response to what takes place as we remember, celebrate and give attention is that we recommit to living within the grace of this covenantal relationship with God and each other. The worship gathering should prepare us and motivatate us to go out and live lives of worship. As has often been said at FBC at the end of our services, "Now the worship service truly begins!" One of the clearest calls to this is found in Romans 12:1. Here Paul urges us, because of the mercies of God, to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. Our lives ought to be an offering of worship to God! It's as if we are adding a huge AMEN! to the end of the worship gathering. Because of what we have seen, heard, celebrated, we are proclaiming that we desire to live out the calling that God has called us to - to bring Him glory with all of our lives. Worship gatherings that don't lead us to this place fall short. No one in scripture every had an encounter with the living God and went away unaffected.

"Father, may our worship gatherings this weekend lead us to the place where we desire to offer our lives to You. May they be lived out for Your glory and used to bless those we come in contact with this week. Give us the grace to live this out. Amen!"

Songs for Our Gathering this Week:

Rejoice

     by Dustin Kensrue | Stuart Townend

Great are You Lord

     by David Leonard | Jason Ingram | Leslie Jordan

Strong to Save

     by Eddie Hoagland | Tyler Miller

Christ the Lord is Risen Today
     by Charles Wesley | Samuel Arnold | Kurtis Parks

The Gathering - Part Seventeen

"Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised, and His greatness is unsearchable." - Ps. 145:3

"Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!" - Rom. 11:33 

"and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might . . . " - Eph. 1:19 

When we see terms like these – unsearchable, unfathomable, immeasurable – it should not cause us to give up on trying to know God as we seek to worship Him. It should cause us to dig deeper into scripture, relying on His Spirit to reveal to us who He is and what He has done.

One author reminds us, “Vagueness about the object of our praise inevitably leads to making our own praise the object. Praise therefore becomes an end in itself, and we are caught up in our own ‘worship experience’ rather than in the God whose character and acts are the only proper focus.”  When we don’t have clarity in our worship in regards to God’s character and God’s works, our worship is directed to a god of our own imagination, not the God of Scripture.

That’s where the significance of the content of our songs comes in to play. Someone once said that our songs are our “sung theology.” The songs we sing are a reflection of our core beliefs and our walk of faith. We must have theologically accurate, clear and passionate songs about God. That is why we want to introduce a new song this weekend at our gatherings - Come Behold The Wondrous Mystery.

This song takes on the truth that God and His plans are a wonderful mystery, unable to be grasped with human understanding and yet gives clarity and expression of praise to some of the core truths of our salvation.

The lyrics and attached scripture references where the truths that we will sing come from can be found below.

The unifying theme of the song is who Jesus Christ is and how God the Father used His incarnation, death, burial and resurrection to fulfill His righteous demands for our sin. Through Jesus and His substitutionary death on the cross we can have deliverance from sin, both now and when He returns for us. These truths bring us hope and we can remind one another of this hope as we sing this song in our gatherings.


Come Behold The Wondrous Mystery by Matt Boswell | Michael Bleecker | Matt Papa

VERSE 1
Come behold the wondrous mystery (Col. 2:1-3)
In the dawning of the King (1 Tim. 1:16-18)
He the theme of heaven’s praises (Rev. 5:1-14)
Robed in frail humanity (Phil. 2:5-8)
In our longing, in our darkness
Now the light of life has come (2 Tim. 1:10)
Look to Christ, who condescended (Phil. 2:5-8)
Took on flesh to ransom us (Matt. 20:28)

VERSE 2
Come behold the wondrous mystery
He the perfect Son of Man (John 3:14)
In His living, in His suffering
Never trace nor stain of sin (Heb. 4:15)
See the true and better Adam (1 Cor. 15:45)
Come to save the hell-bound man (1 Cor. 15:22)
Christ the great and sure fulfillment
Of the law; in Him we stand (Rom. 5:18-21)

VERSE 3
Come behold the wondrous mystery
Christ the Lord upon the tree
In the stead of ruined sinners (2 Cor. 5:21)
Hangs the Lamb in victory (Col. 2:13-15)
See the price of our redemption (Eph. 1:7)
See the Father’s plan unfold
Bringing many sons to glory (Gal. 4:4-7)
Grace unmeasured, love untold

VERSE 4
Come behold the wondrous mystery
Slain by death the God of life
But no grave could e’er restrain Him (Acts 13:28-30)
Praise the Lord; He is alive! (Matt. 28:1-8)
What a foretaste of deliverance (Rom. 6:4; 8:11)
How unwavering our hope (1 Pet. 1:3)
Christ in power resurrected (Eph. 1:19-21)
As we will be when he comes (1 Cor. 15:51-53)

Songs for Our Gathering this Week:

How Rich A Treasure We Possess

     by Matt Boswell | Matt Papa 

Cornerstone

     by Edward Mote | Eric Liljero | Jonas Myrin | Reuben Morgan | William Batchelder Bradbury

Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery

     by by Matt Boswell | Michael Bleecker | Matt Papa

Your Glory
     by Leslie Jordan