Veritas Gathered: Preparing for Sunday – July 7th, 2013

 ::SERMON::
The sermon this week comes from Revelation 3:14-22, which is a letter written to the church of Laodicea. This is quite possibly one of the most recognized passages of scripture. It speaks of the “lukewarm” christian as well as that Jesus is knocking at the door of your heart. Jesus has a stern rebuke for the church of Laodicea and calls them to repentance but what does this mean for us today? Is our first reaction upon being rebuked by God to repent?

::LITURGY::
Our Call to Worship this week does exactly that- it calls us to worship.  To be more specific, it calls us to worship the Lord and to sing praises to Him.  We encourage you to spend some time reading through this liturgy and to dwell on the truths that it points out.  We are not expected to worship God on our own strength or by our own efforts but instead to rely on the Spirit of God, which resides within us.

L: The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us;
C: we dwell in him and he in us.
L: Give thanks to the Lord and call upon his name;
C: make known his deeds among the peoples.
L: Sing to him, sing praises to him,
C: and speak of all his marvelous works.
L: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty,
C: who was and is and is to come!
—based on Psalm 105:1-2; Romans 5:5; Revelation 4:8

::MUSIC::

Check out this list of some of the songs we will be singing together this week:

– “All Creatures”, a hymn written by St. Francis of Assisi calling all of creation to worship the Lord

– “Shine Into Our Night”, a beautiful song of confession and assurance based solely on the work of Christ

– “Halleluja! What A Savior”, rejoices in the glorious splendor of our savior Jesus Christ

Here is a link to a Spotify playlist.

Even though our arrangements might be slightly different, listen through these songs and see the great truths that they speak about our God and then come prepared to sing them out loudly and joyfully as a gathered church.

See you Sunday!